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LOCAL FOOD

While in Malta you have to do something really easy. Get hold of a Maltese loaf. Cut it up in thick crusty slices. Cut a tomato in half. Spread the tomato over the fresh—preferably still warm—bread. Open and pour some Maltese olive oil. Dip the bread in the oil and sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper.

This sounds like the cheapest, easiest food you could find. Now tell anyone Maltese the magic words ħobż biż-żejt ( pronounced as hops bees zate ; literally translated as bread with oil) and watch their eyes glimmer and their faces beam.

Ħobż biż-żejt conjures up all sorts of pleasant thoughts—days of carefree youth at the beach and summer days with evening breezes which are a welcome break from the sultry stickiness of the day. We tend to enjoy ħobż biż-żejt mostly in connection with the sea, near swimming pools or on boats. But you can also eat it at various cafes, bars, and waterpolo clubs. It is the ubiquitous food to please most Maltese.

In Malta we love to disagree. Even in agreement we seem to fight or argue. Our Mediterranean hotbloodedness

Don’t mess with my

ħobż biż-żejt

always rises to the fore and as we are garrulous and opinionated, we gesticulate, we holler, and we talk excitedly all at once. But about ħobż biż-żejt we all agree that it’s delicious and one of life’s best offerings. We might not agree about the accompanying ingredients but we all love it and it competes well with—and beats— most sumptuous, intricate or delicate dishes.

The added ingredients and the amount of oil and even amount of tomato splashed on the bread vary. You can add anything from chopped onion, mint, olives, capers, basil, canned tuna, ġbejna (cheeselets) or broad beans. And these can be in any concoction of choices and amounts. Even the bread might have some variations. A crispy crusty ftira (unleavened bread in a round form) is quite a favourite and buns can also be chosen but they have to be proper, Maltese bread-type buns. The terrible news to the health-conscious is that brown bread does not work the magic as well as white.

Taste this delicacy and you will really be tasting a part of Malta, our very essence. Food is incredibly

important to a nation and like our pastizzi (cheesecakes and pea cakes) ħobż biż-żejt really symbolises and unifies us. All strata of society, from the richest to the humblest, eat this delicacy which, to wax stupidly lyrical, is the embodiment of summer, of the sea and of taking things easy.

So when we eat ħobż biż-żejt in winter (though winter tomatoes do not really compete with the summer ones for taste), or when we are busy and stressed, it makes us think of languid summer carefree days with some oiled bread to keep us satisfied and sated.

So deprive me and anyone on these islands of any food and glorious food but make sure you don’t mess with our ħobż biż-żejt.

VICTOr CAllEjA words