On a warm August morning in 1760, an hour before sunrise, a motley group of friends slipped out of the Grand Harbour to spend a few days of merry-making on a rented boat. The party consisted of six priests from Qormi, two sailors from the Order’s Ship, the San Antonio (including a certain Felice Testa), two barklora (ferrymen), and a young girl aged six. Pre-empting the fierce midday heat, the barklori and sailors rowed determinedly towards the north of the Island.
Making haste for Selmun, they reached a beach known as Għajn Ħadid. Once close to shore, the priests tossed aside their cassocks – an act they were later reprimanded for- and wearing civilian clothes jumped off the boat. They explained to their companions that they would spend the day hunting for wild rabbits in the area. Whilst they were hunting, the sailors stopped for a spot of fishing round Mellieha point. As sunset approached, the boat anchored in Mellieħa bay, the sailors ate their catch of fish, and rejoining the party, the priests brought along their freshly hunted rabbits.
Come dawn, the holidaymakers walked up to the local church where one of the priests who knew the Parish priest of Mellieħa, sauntered into the rooms close by, grabbed a violin, and started playing. Immediately, the youngest of the sailors joined in the singing. For three sunkissed days, the band of convivial men and the young girl swam, fished, hunted, and feasted. Leaving the village of Mellieħa, they rowed down the coast to St. Julians Bay, where they visited the small chapel on the hill that is still found there today. On the third day, they sailed back to Grand Harbour, where they all returned to their respective homes.
This care-free episode, one undertaken on many a summer day by present-day leisure seekers, has prompted Heritage Malta’s ‘Taste History’ team of curators, food historians, and chefs to re-enact the 1760 outing in a soon-to-be aired documentary. Kicking off Season Two, this documentary, the latest instalment in a series featuring historical recipes and beverages, will also recreate a wild rabbit recipe taken from an English recipe book of 1747. The ‘thick and smooth’ rabbit stew is flavoured with a blade or two of mace, an onion stuck with cloves, a nutmeg cut into pieces, an anchovy, a bundle of sweet herbs, a piece of butter as big as a walnut, a spoonful of ‘catchup’ and another of wine, and finally, some fresh or pickled mushrooms.
‘Malta qatt ma rrifjutat qamħ’ (Malta never refused wheat). Like most idioms reflecting harsh reality, this popular saying is the result of a disadvantaged, small and arid Island’s tenuous and fragile relationship with the supply of wheat. The French historian Fernand Braudel wrote, “the people never listen to reason on the subject of dear bread.” So dependent was the survival of Malta’s fortunes on bread that at times, the Knight of St. John sent corsairs out not to capture slaves but to impound grain ships. Sir Alexander Ball, the first elected Maltese president, did the same. He sent out the mightiest navy in the world out of the ports of St Paul’s Bay and Gozo to capture wheat for the beleaguered Maltese. He required guns, swords, and soldiers, but he desperately needed bread.
‘Dear bread’ is the subject of another Taste History documentary which will also be broadcast this autumn. Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner (1663-1680) was the first Grandmaster to harness the potential of Malta’s ever-present wind power, raise agricultural productivity and fill the treasury with the Knights of St John’s right of monopoly on the construction of windmills. Cotoner not only introduced the basic design on which windmills would be built but also created the modus operandi that would be followed by his successors, well into the British period in Malta. The 18th century Ta’ Kola windmill in Xagħra, Gozo, ground its last consignment of flour just prior to 1987 when it was entrusted to the Museums Department for restoration and safekeeping. The windmill’s final occupant was adventurer Ġużeppi, son of miller Nikola Grech, and the explanation behind the mill’s moniker. Departing from Gozo in 1916, at the tender age of sixteen soon after World War I broke out, Ġużeppi survived the Gallipoli landings, the lead mines of Australia, and a brief stint in Tunisia, only to return to the family trade of Millers and rescue Ta’ Kola windmill from ruin.
Various cereals were ground to produce different flours at Ta’ Kola Windmill. Wheat and barley, for instance, were combined together to create ‘il-ħobża tal-maħlut’ (mixed bread). Featuring commentary by Daphne Caruana, Principal Curator of this unique relic of bread-making in Gozo, the Taste History Ta’ Kola documentary will also recreate and provide the recipe for this historic bread.
Watch these two delicious documentaries by liking Taste History’s Facebook page in order to keep updated with future events and viewing dates and timings.
As published in Delicious Magazine pgs 34-35 Autumn 2021
Watch past episodes by clicking HERE
留言