The knife slices through the dark crusty outer of the bread. The serrated knife explodes the hard crisp loaf sending dark brown shards rippling across the board. Warm in your hand, the dense interior, the soft inside is punctured with holes formed by air bubbles. Slicing through the Hobza is cutting into hundreds of years of Maltese and European history.
The significance of bread to the Maltese people was brought to life in Episode two of For the Love of Bread, broadcast in Australia on SBS TV.
The interviewer discussed with Doctors Rachel Radmilli and Noel Buttegieg from the University of Malta, about how the association with bread is more than just a food in the Maltese society and how Hobz has played a critical role in Maltese life over hundreds of years.
The show fired my desire to find out more about the role this baked dough played in Maltese history. I took a deeper dive into the significance of bread with Doctor Radmilli and her colleague Professor Carmel Cassar.
Hobz has been integral to the Maltese culture from history through the middle-ages to the modern day, finding its central role in religion, language, rituals and societal constructs.
The humble Hobz through the lens of its colour, has defined poverty, denoted class and illustrated personal situations. Until the twentieth century, the darker bread, less refined, was eaten mainly by the working class and the white or refined bread typically associated with the upper classes. Asking the question “Tell me what bread you eat.” Identified a person’s status in the structures of Maltese society.
Bread could be used to assess a person’s character with certain types of bread being associated with different socio-economic classes, but the boundaries are blurred nowadays, so the context has changed. To ask someone for a character reference of a friend of theirs: dak (or dik) x’ħobż jiekol (or tiekol)? Another related expression is: dak ħobżu maħbuż! Which literally means his bread has been kneaded, that can be interpreted as a person having his bed laid for him, ie someone has paved the way for him/her. For example if someone inherits a job or property. A person who has lost their job has tilef hobzu (he has lost his bread).
Bread could also be used as a metaphor. The expression of Il-ħobż tiħ lill min jaf jieklu, loosely meaning to give the job to the person who knows how, or has the skill to do the job through to its conclusion.
People’s strongly held beliefs on the importance of bread were expressed through actions. For example, if bread was dropped to the floor, it was to be picked up, kissed and the sign of the cross made before the cutting. In a religious context, bread would not be touched with a knife but instead only broken by hand.
Being an integral part of Maltese society over hundreds of years, bread has evolved with the island’s many influences. Papal reports from the 1500’s noted “the people ate bread made from a mixture of barley and wheat”. There was a great difference between country and harbour area bread. The country bread was prepared in a floor oven made from baked clay which was often heated by thistle or cow dung and flattened bread stuck on the side, which could have been an early version of Ftira.
The modern round bread was baked in proper ovens and was widely popularised by the Knights. The form is similar to other bread to be found in many parts of south west Europe particularly Italy, France and Spain. Until the 1920s it was made from four ingredients namely flour, water, salt and sour dough (starter or tinsila). The British tried to introduce other ingredients but the bakers refused the new methods such as using brewer’s yeast.
The humble hobz has driven governments of all persuasions to maintain social cohesion, the Government realised its obligations to keep the people fed with bread lest they provoke a social uprising. When harvest failure meant famine and death the poor wanted a cheap price for bread. Bread needs a steady supply of grain and in Malta all grain needed to be imported with a heavy reliance on Sicily. During the late middle-ages, large amounts of wheat and other cereals were imported from Sicily free of the export duties. Civil disturbances occurred due to food shortages during the reign of austerity by Grand master Texada between 1773 and 1775. Economic mismanagement started in 1728 under Grand Master Vilhena, whose responsibility it was to import duty free grain. Instead he used the country’s funds to build a palace and undertake repairs at Mdina. This became a precursor to large debts under later Grand Masters, which lead to out of season wheat purchases from Sicily, at prohibitive prices or at times grains could not be purchased at all, leading to the reduced availability of grain for the population, further fomenting the discontent.
Granaries were built to manage potential disruptions to this crucial supply and ensure Malta’s grain security. The island was sometimes at the mercy of pirates, suffered adverse weather conditions and in WW2 was devastated by the German blockade. Seventy four deep silos can still be found in the square known as il-Fosos, in Floriana. The granaries were extremely important historically as a small island like Malta always had a food security issue. Nowadays the granaries are more often used for mass gatherings, such as for the celebrations of the feast of St Publius (The patron saint of Floriana), for political mass meetings and concerts such as the Isle of MTV music festival.
Historically, the grain was taken from the Granaries in Floriana and Valletta to Qormi. Qormi being close to Marsa, adjacent to the Grand Harbour, was a logistical convenience for trading. The Grand Harbour was a vital economic hub for the island during the Knight’s period as well as being a military base for many years, where there was a good market for bread.
Qormi’s proximity to the grain storage at Valletta and Floriana led to Qormi’s reputation as being the baking town, where the best and more famous bakeries are still located. There are other locales with well known bakeries such as in Rabat, Mgarr (Malta) and Xaghra in Gozo. Qormi holds the annual bread festival, Lejl f’Casal Fornaro, an excellent evening to roam the traditionally decorated streets of the village, not only to sample its bread-making but also an opportunity to appreciate artistic displays, performances and agricultural exhibitions.
In the sweltering heat of the bakery, as the Maltese baker pulls the loaves from the wood fired oven, the baker is providing people with more than a tasty staple, it is a thread to bind a society. The local baker provides a social service to allow the use of the same ovens, by local families for baking large dishes that needed roasting (like potatoes or pork or mqarrun il-forn etc).
The Maltese bread is based on a sourdough starter, the tinsila, which in some bakeries has been carefully nurtured over generations. The starter is included in the flour and dough mixture. The careful mixing and resting creates the air bubbles to be later baked at high temperatures often in the traditional wood fired ovens, to produce the Hobza’s distinctive hard crust, the hint of a sour flavour and the chewy air pocketed interior. Observations from visitors to Malta in the late 1700 and early 1800 recorded that the Maltese regularly ate bread with oil, anchovies and onion or garlic. So, the next time in Malta, when you slice into a freshly baked loaf of bread, drizzle the olive oil, smother on the Kunserva and apply a topping of green olives and crunch through the crust, you could be savouring a loaf that was borne from a starter linking over two hundred years of Maltese history.
This article was first published in The Malta Journal
Acknowledgments: thanks to Doctor Rachel Radmilli (Lecturer, Department of Management, Mediterranean Foodways Platform) and Professor Carmel Cassar (Professor of Cultural History) both from University of Malta. For the Love of Bread available on SBS On-Demand Episode 2.
