"Is there anything here if I do not eat meat?" There is, and it is the older half of the cuisine. Starting with kapunata.
It is the question we are asked most often by visitors reading the menu for the first time, and the honest answer surprises people: yes, quite a lot, and it is not a modern accommodation.
Start with kapunata — aubergine, tomato, peppers, capers and olives, cooked down until the vegetables stop being separate things. Every Mediterranean island has a version and every one of them insists theirs came first.
Vegetables were never the side dish
There is a habit of reading Maltese food as a meat menu with some greenery attached, and it misses the whole cuisine. For most of this island's history meat was for Sundays and feast days. The everyday cooking was vegetables, bread, cheese and whatever the sea gave up — and it had to be good enough to carry the week.
That is why the vegetable dishes have such character. They were the meal, not the afterthought. Capers grow wild out of walls here; it would be rude not to cook with them.
The vegetable half of a Maltese menu is the older half.
It is the question we are asked most often by visitors reading the menu for the first time, and the honest answer surprises people: yes, quite a lot, and it is not a modern accommodation.
Start with kapunata — aubergine, tomato, peppers, capers and olives, cooked down until the vegetables stop being separate things. Every Mediterranean island has a version and every one of them insists theirs came first.
Vegetables were never the side dish
There is a habit of reading Maltese food as a meat menu with some greenery attached, and it misses the whole cuisine. For most of this island's history meat was for Sundays and feast days. The everyday cooking was vegetables, bread, cheese and whatever the sea gave up — and it had to be good enough to carry the week.
That is why the vegetable dishes have such character. They were the meal, not the afterthought. Capers grow wild out of walls here; it would be rude not to cook with them.
The vegetable half of a Maltese menu is the older half.
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