Growing up I did not spend hours by my mother's side in the kitchen watching her cook, bake and serve traditional Maltese cuisine. I did not learn the secret to making the perfect Timpana, Minestra, or Aljotta. I was in a world of my own too busy studying, writing poetry and clubbing (yes I was an 80's child). In hindsight, I can safely say that I was way too self-absorbed as an adolescent to glean any pearls of wisdom that were on offer in my Mama's kitchen.

At twenty four years of age I was thrown into the kitchen as a young bride and 'hit the ground running' so to speak. I had no idea how to boil an egg let alone feed a husband. So during the first couple of years of marital bliss Mr Man did all the cooking as I happily ploughed through my Arts Degree. After a year or two of having my three square meals catered for by my loving spouse the honeymoon came  to an abrupt end as Mr Man decided that enough was enough and that I needed to acquire some new skills - Pronto!




So that was the beginning of my huge learning curve and subsequent love affair with Mediterranean food. It also marked a period in my life where I started to reclaim my heritage and that inturn saw me beginning to embrace the food of my parents and grandparents. Occasionally I would deviate for a season and dabble and experiment with other styles of cooking, but my natural inclination and palate would always see me return to the cooking style of my family.

Several years ago just days before the birth of Little Miss Hoover, we had our 'Last Supper' (the special meal before you hit the labour ward) at Greg Malouf's wonderful restaurant Momo. It was a memorable night for many reasons, firstly because I went into labour shortly after my meal, and secondly because it was the night I fell in love with 'Middle Eastern' cuisine.

Thus, to my already heaving bookshelves I added - Saha, Arabesque, Turquoise, Tamarind & Saffron and Taking Tea in the Medina. Accordingly, my pantry was quickly stocked with cumin, saffron, rosewater, cardamom pods, harissa, chickpeas, couscous, preserved lemons, ras el hanout, barberries, sumac, burghal, za' atar, halva, pomegranate molasses, dukkah and orange blossom water.



It still amazes me that it took me that long to make the 'culinary adjustment' with regard to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking. I have always viewed them as separate. Yet in reacquainting myself with the food of my heritage I have come to realise just how beautifully the two converge. There have been many contributions to Maltese cuisine over the centuries 'not a surprising fact when one considers Malta's location and it's social and economic history and the successive waves of domination'. Thus as the island was seized and occupied over the centuries by the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Spanish and French it makes perfect sense that not only would culture, language, religion and architecture be profoundly influenced, but so too would the food!