Maltese meals, customs and foods commonly used
MEALS AND CUSTOMS
Maltese restaurants, snack bars, coffee shops, and street vendors satisfy
the taste whims of most tourists, but the Maltese prefer to eat hearty
simple, well-seasoned food at home. Breakfast for most is a small light
meal of bread and cheese, honey and ham accompanied by coffee and milk. If
that seems a light beginning for the day a snack of tea or coffee and
pastizzi around eleven will hold any Maltese till lunchtime.
Maltese homemakers begin early in the morning to prepare the ingredients
and simmer their soups over small petrol stoves. Soup for lunch is a
tradition broken only by the laborer who cannot get home for the meal.
Then a bundle of hobz biz-zejt (bread rubbed with tomatoes,
drizzled with oil and seasonings, and topped with garlic, sliced onions,
and herbs) and a glass of wine will ease their hunger till evening, when a
hot meal - probably a pasta dish or a meat and vegetable stew - will be
savored.
Homemakers, businesspeople, laborers and children all stop their day's
routine for a short break at four for tea and small cookies. The tea break
is especially important for those who customarily take their evening meal
between nine and ten. Villagers usually have a light evening meal at
around seven.
Regardless of the meal, in Malta men are served first, and they usually
receive the largest and choicest portions. But Maltese meal service is
generally pleasantly casual; enjoying food takes precedence over formal
manners. Thus there are no frowns when succulent bones are eaten with the
fingers.
FOODS COMMONLY USED
The foods of the Maltese table are simple and satisfying. Unquestionably, many dishes can trace their origins to foods introduced by historic invaders: Greeks, Romans, Arabs, French, and British. The latter left a taste for beer, mutton, lamb, turkey, Christmas pudding, and probably also the custom of a "roast joint with potatoes" for Sunday dinner. Crunchy Maltese sourdough bread and Rikotta cheese are certainly staples but these are well rounded with hearty soups, stews, and pasta dishes that deftly spin out the flavors of meats and fish. Vegetables are preferred cooked; salads are few and usually seasonal. Local fruits are relished as snacks or desserts but are expensive. Wine is the commonest beverage and knows no age limit.