I spent much of my childhood in Malta, a small Mediterranean island that sits roughly mid way between the toe of Italy and the north coast of Africa. My Dad took a job out there and we moved to a life that felt like summer for twelve months of every year.
It’s only looking back on it that I’ve come to realise that much of my interests and tastes in food stem from this period.
It helped that Mum was an adventurous cook but in Malta there always seemed to be interesting and unusual things to eat when we were out of the house as well.
I’m pretty sure that it was during this time that I first tried octopus. I have very clear memories of watching them being caught and I’m sure that I remember the saltiness of their taste and the chewiness of the texture. Swordfish and shellfish were also local delicacies that we were encouraged to try.
Maltese bread looked so daunting when we first saw it. Unlike the homogenised loafs that we were used to it was dense, crusty and no two looked the same. The crusts may have made it difficult to break into but when you did it definitely rewarded the effort. One of my abiding memories is the bread tasting of the oils and rich pasta sauces that it had been dunked in.
There are some things that I had in Malta that i’ve never eaten again since we left the island. Pastizzi is one of these. We used to refer to them as Maltese cheesecakes and in my mind they will always be a childhood treat. Crisp flaky parcels of hot cheese, the perfect comfort food. Some recent investigations have told me that they can also contain chicken or peas but I only remember the cheese ones. Those same investigations have unearthed pastizzi recipes so maybe i will get to try them again after all.
There is always a concern that making something that you haven’t tried for so long might spoil the memory, but in the case of pastizzi I think it’s a risk worth taking.
Like many Catholic countries Malta has multiple religious festivals throughout the year. My memories of these are of fireworks that seemed all about the noise rather than the colours and of Maltese nougat. Nougat, or qubbajt in Maltese, seemed to be everywhere, a soft sweet confection filled with hazelnuts and almonds. We also went to quite a few weddings during our time on the island and there were plates of nougat at these as well, along with small bags of it to take away as a gift at the end.
As Malta was my childhood it would be wrong to say that everything I tried then is necessarily something that i would relish now. 7Up floats seemed wonderful but I’m not sure that a mixture of lemonade and ice cream would be quite so enticing now. Heinz tinned gnocchi is another and also a bit of a mystery. I have clear memories of my mother opening tins of this but I’ve never seen it since and Google finds no trace of it. Either I’m imagining it or Heinz have erased all records. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.
I recently inherited my Mum’s Maltese cookbook. Bought at a time when you could get a book for two shillings and sixpence according to the cover. I haven’t cooked from it yet but when I do I will share the experience in future posts.
David in the kitchen. 
Great post! You were lucky to have a variety of food experiences as a child. My very Irish, every Catholic, working class home had pretty simple meals – over cooked meat (except for overcooked fish on Fridays), overcooked vegetables, and potatoes in every form. We never ate out (too many people!) nor did we, as a tribe, eat at others’ homes often so my food experience was so very narrow. I suspect that contributes to my limited food choices today.
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Thank you. Malta played a very big part in my childhood. I’ve never been back since then. For a long time I thought it might spoil memories but now I think it’s too long ago for that to be the case.
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