Maltese special occasions
SPECIAL OCCASIONS
Together with special family occasions such as weddings, christenings,
birthdays, and funerals, the Maltese calendar includes Roman Catholic
festivals, national holidays, and many local festas. It would be difficult
to spot a time of year when nothing exciting is happening.
Special occasions are the time for sweet treats more than special main
dishes. They are made extra-special because they are served or prepared
only for specific festivals. Some of these include the following:
Christmas: Roast stuffed turkey and steamed plum puddings are the
Christmas specialties. The Christmas pudding is usually made near the
beginning of November then soaked with rum each following Sunday till the
festive day. Hot chestnut soup (mbuljuta), flavored with cocoa and
tangerine peel, and specially baked treacle rings (qaghaq talghasel) are
also made. The latter is a white pastry filled with a rich treacle and
semolina filling and shaped to form a round "sausage." Small slits in the
white pastry reveal the rich filling beneath.
Carnival: Loud bands, winding parades, and costumed figures mark
the three-to-seven-day celebrations preceding Lent. Prinjolata, a rich
pine nut cake, almond chunks, and qubbajt (nougat) are the special sweets.
Lent: Lenten restrictions have been considerably relaxed. Usually
no meat is eaten, but dairy products and fats are now allowed. Kwarezimal,
a Lenten cake containing no eggs or fat but made from minced almonds and
flour, sugar and citrus zest, is still a tradition.
Easter: It wouldn't be Easter without figolli, which are human and
animal shapes cut from sugar-cookie dough filled with almond paste and
brightly decorated with colored icing. Too good to save only for Easter
and often made at other times are the tiny Rikotta-filled tartlets called
qassatat.
Birthdays, Christenings: Biskuttini tal-maghmudija or christening
biscuits are rich cookies shaped into rounds or oblongs. Biskuttini
tal-lewz are delicately crisp almond meringues. Both are specialties of
all christenings and most family gatherings and festas. But no Maltese
birthday would be complete without xkunvat, fried twisted strips of rich
pastry scented with orange-flower water and served in a golden crispy pile
drizzled with Maltese honey (thyme-flavored) and colored "shot" (tiny
pinheads of colored candies used for cake decoration).