That weird looking title there is Maltese for what I had for lunch today.
Bread with oil and with tomato, is what it means and it’s the best part of Maltese cuisine. Talk about simplicity.
I’ve been reading a lot about Italian cooking, and it seems no one can stress enough about the importance of fresh ingredients when preparing a simple meal. Hobz biz-zejt is an excellent example of this. I’ve made it over and over again in Toronto, but it’s just not the same. Even benefiting from living in a city where I have an abundance of markets and European style bakeries, it’s still not fresh enough. But if you can find a market, or your own backyard, THAT’s THE WAY TO DO IT.
I’m talking about basil, thyme, rocket, mint growing in your back garden in the rich soil, or walking across the road to the farmer in the valley and shaking the soil from the leaves and carrying those precious red jewels called tomatoes in crinkly paper bags.
A MALTESE TOMATO, IS SOMETHING ELSE.
FORGET ABOUT IT.
It is kissed with so much sun and blessed with so much vitamin C. It is fleshy, and its flesh is full of juice.
The beautiful thing about hobz biz zejt, is that it has a million different versions of itself and everyone will tell you what the right way is. Sometimes it can be as simple as tomato paste and olive oil. Usually it’s got tuna in it, and fresh tomato, fresh herbs like basil and mint. Capers. White beans. Maybe some good briny olives.
When I was in school, we didn’t have pizza day or a hot dog day. We had hobz biz zejt day. And we fed the whole damn school from our kitchen in the Home Economics class. We had delivered, huge bags full of Maltese bread called ftira. Ftira is a round, flat bread, a little bit equivalent to ciabatta. It is made so that the maximum surface area is crust. This is perfect for stuffing all sorts of things in between, and all dripping with olive oil because the crust holds up.
The best ftira, is made in a fire oven in the village of Mosta in a little shop near the dome church. In a fire oven, the crust bubbles and gets blackened like a really good Italian pizza crust. Those bubbles create lovely craters in which olive oil and herb can sit in. The shop is one of those soccer club holes in the wall, I’ve only seen them in Malta and Sicily, and there’s a name for them, but I forget what they’re called. You always see old men hanging around outside smoking cigarettes, but there’s always a line up during lunch time. For the hobz biz zejt, of course.
THE BEST WAY TO EAT HOBZ BIZ ZEJT:
GET OUTSIDE.
1. on an anchored boat with a Cisk (a Maltese golden, hoppy lager), in a bikini and sea salt drying on your skin
2. on the beach. sitting on a rock like a lizard in the sun
3. in the car on the way to the beach, with your hair whipping around your face as your crazy Maltese driver zips by at a million miles an hour.
4. after a long hike in the countryside, on a hill thick with the aroma of wild thyme heated by the sun, overlooking the bay. Drunk with a glass bottle of Kinnie (similar to the Italian Brio)
5. in the early evening around 4:00pm on the promanade by the sea (a pre dinner snack because you’ve been swimming and running around all day enjoying yourself).
HOBZ BIZ ZEJT:
(note: get your hands dirty. Be at one with your sandwich. This is a sensory experience)
1. Slice in half, an Italian ciabatta or Maltese ftira. Please don’t buy it from the grocery store. Hopefully you are near a bakery.
2. Liberally drizzle with olive oil
3. smash a garlic clove and rub the oiled bread with it. Put aside the clove for another use.
4. spread the bread with tomato paste
4. grab a hunk of vine ripened tomato and anoint the bread with its juices by sort of rubbing it in there. Add a few thick slices and sprinkle with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.
5. now start piling it all on. Fresh basil, fresh mint, fresh rocket, a good canned tuna, white beans, pit your olives, capers, what have you.
6. Mum, dad, have I left anything out?
**an important note. I have concluded that buying cheap canned tuna on sale doesn’t work. Buy the good stuff. Cheap canned tuna is dry and tasteless (unless you count tasting of CAN).
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