Malta

I’ve gone to some crazy lengths to make food from various countries, but Malta challenges me more than most. For example, Cheese Cave in Claremont could get me ġbejniet, a Maltese ricotta made with whole milk from sheep, but unfortunately, even if I had ordered it two weeks ago when I called them, it wouldn’t be here until mid-January. I settled for a similar ricotta made with whole milk from cows to make soppa tal armla while Kristen is visiting for Christmas: https://www.amaltesemouthful.com/widows-soup-soppa-tal-armla/

Even substituting the ricotta, what I bought from Cheese Cave is much more creamy than the ricotta from the grocery store. It was great in the soup and we had plenty left over for spreading on sourdough toast with honey. I wasn’t as lucky with ingredients to make kwareżimal for a cookie exchange (https://apronandwhisk.com/kwarezimal/) and pudina tal-hobz for dessert on Christmas Eve (https://en.petitchef.com/recipes/other/maltese-bread-pudding-pudina-tal-hobz-fid-673095). I found the orange flower water at a local middle eastern market but the candied orange peel is still eluding me. I visited Trader Joe’s and Sprouts and called two different Whole Foods. I also texted Kaitlin’s roommate’s mom who sometimes makes it to sell at farmer’s markets. No luck, so last Sunday Kristen ordered it from Amazon. It didn’t have the option of express shipping, so here it is Christmas Eve and I have all the other ingredients, but without the candied orange peel it doesn’t look like we will be having these Maltese cookies and bread pudding until sometime next week. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so obsessed with those particular recipes and made something else from this webpage: https://www.amaltesemouthful.com/templates/blog/

Finding Maltese movies is a similar challenge. Many movies have been made on location in Malta, but few of them are about Malta. I watched Simshar, one of the few, on Kanopy. It is also available on Amazon Prime. Limestone Cowboy is available online for a fee: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/limestonecowboy. Of the well-known movies filmed in Malta but set somewhere else (some listed here: https://almostginger.com/36-films-shot-in-malta/) my favorite is World War Z (currently on Hulu). My least favorite is By the Sea (currently on Netflix) but I have to admit, the scenery is lovely.

One of the many ruling powers that controlled Malta through the ages is the Knights of Malta, a group of mixed Europeans from the wealthy class. This documentary outlines their history, shows the beautiful buildings they erected on Malta, and highlights their current humanitarian efforts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj1ljjKosZU. Other rulers of Malta have included Phoenicians and Romans in antiquity and French and the British more recently.

British writers have been writing about Malta since Christopher Marlow, a contemporary of Shakespeare: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/901. Even today, the books I found in the library were mostly about the British in Malta during World War II. To get an inside look at Malta I read:

· An interview with Nadia Mifsud: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/the-city-and-the-writer-in-valletta-malta-with-nadia-mifsud-nathalie-handal

· An interview with Immanuel Mifsud: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/the-city-and-the-writer-in-paola-malta-with-immanuel-mifsud-nathalie-handal

· Poems by Immanuel Mifsud: http://columbiajournal.org/three-poems-by-immanuel-mifsud-in-translation/

· A short story by Pierre Mejlak: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/i-went-to-see-her-pa

· A short story by Trevor Zahra: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/white-angel

Musicians from Malta perform a wide variety of music. Examples include:

· Traditional Maltese Songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9X2uPlonCE&t=1435s

· Freddie Portelli: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slVjXUQRFpE

· Joseph Calleja: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n06os_ka5M

· Ira Losco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J7O5BGqPDk

Malta has the opening episode of Restaurants on the Edge on Netflix. I would love to eat at the restaurant they highlighted as well as visit some of these great places listed by The Crazy Tourist: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-malta/. I look forward to that time when we can travel broadly again. In the meantime, I’m hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in Malta and throughout the world.

Photo credit: Calin Stan: https://unsplash.com/photos/3F904UCiZGw