As time went by and Church rules became more lax, Maltese folk bent traditional Lenten decrees to shape this solemn season into one that is now peppered with mouthwatering culinary delights. By DAVID DARMANIN
It’s the irony of Lent: that fasting should be accompanied by the anticipation of so many culinary delights.
But how does the sacred coincide with the profane? Why do the carob caramels get an exemption from Good Friday’s sugar ban? And why is kwarezimal OK to eat during Lent, but figolli are frowned upon before Easter?
It all starts with carnival, or ‘carne vale’ in Italian, meaning “meat allowed”. In Catholicism, carnival coincides as the end of Ordinary Time prior to the start of the Lenten sacrifice: a 40-day period which in the past included obligatory fasting and abstinence lasting from Ash Wednesday up to Easter Saturday.
With its uncharacteristically liberal celebrations, carnival’s bacchanalian fanfare was followed by five weeks of its complete opposite, with Church authorities becoming very rigid on the observation of Lenten rules. Fasting rules were so strict during the rule of the Knights of St John that subjects faced the Inquisition for breaking their fast without special consent from health authorities.
Oddly however, Catholics were freely allowed to eat sweets – a rarity in those days – during Lent. Contrary to modern rules, it was only meat and its derivatives (dairy products and eggs) that were strictly forbidden. Even though sugar was already commonly available in Malta by the 18th Century, until WWII sweets and chocolate were only consumed as a treat or when celebrating a special occasion.
Fasting rules became less rigid with the Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Constitution of 1966: fasting and abstinence became obligatory only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday; Catholics were encouraged to respect the other 38 days by voluntary sacrifice of choice – sexual abstinence, charity work or prayer. And interestingly, canon law is nowadays vague on what food items are prohibited on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday: canon 1251 specifically bans meat during Lent, but the prohibition of other foods is established by Episcopal Conferences (bishop regional committees formed after the Second Vatican Council in 1962) – indicating the role of Malta’s bishops in banning the consumption of sweets on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday only some time throughout the past 44 years.
Kwarezimal vs Figolli
The fact that sweets and sugar were not banned until the recent past explains how kwarezimal (honey and almond cakes) is traditionally consumed during Lent, even in those years when fasting was obligatory by law. As the name suggests, it originates from ‘quadragesima’ – literally ‘the 40 days (of Lent)’.
On the other hand, the figolla (its name probably deriving from the Italian ‘figurella’ – figurine) was banned throughout Lent, despite the fact that both figolla and kwarezimal share very similar ingredients: flour, sugar, almonds, orange-flower water and orange zest. Their main difference lies in the ingredients used for the sweetcrust dough to make a figolla (as opposed to the kwarezimal pastry’s simpler biscuit base) which contains the egg yolks and fat: both meat derivatives banned before 1966.
Kwarezimal are glazed in honey, while figolli are finished with a layer of icing on top. When the yolk is set aside to make the figolla dough, the albumen is reserved, beaten, creamed in sugar and coloured to produce icing. Since egg is also present in icing, it follows that this ingredient could not be used in kwarezimal.
Karamelli tal-Harrub
It remains unclear why even devout Catholics won’t feel guilty breaking the Good Friday fast with a karamella tal-ħarrub (hardened carob syrup). Some say karamelli, resembling a hardened toffee, are permissible because they are sugar-free since pure carob syrup replaces sugar in their making. This is of course an old wives’ tale: producing carob syrup requires sugar. And anyway, proper carob julep sweets are rare to find nowadays.
Chances are that the karamelli sold by Good Friday hawkers are made out of a simple sugar and water reduction with added flavouring. The karamelli concession probably originates from the tradition of selling the karamelli on Good Friday in times when sugar was not yet banned by the church’s fasting rules. The prospect of nibbling on your karamella while being entertained by hooded penitents marching barefoot with their ankles chained seems to have been a tradition too important for the Episcopal Conference to end. Similarly, how could one ban popcorn in cinemas?
Easter grub
While Christ’s sacrifice as ‘the Lamb of God’ bears religious significance with the consumption of the meat during Easter, there’s no doubt that lamb has somewhat lost popularity in Malta, for a number of reasons.
A wider choice of butchery is one. Up until the 20th century, beef was very rare in Malta and its consumption generally looked down on. Today it is one of the most popular meat-types sold, especially in festive times. And with it, the importation of new species of game, poultry and meats not typically endemic to the island have had a downward effect on sales of lamb, a once-popular food item. Variety has depopularised lamb to the extent that it is seldom sold fresh anymore at butchers, and is also found either in pre-packaged frozen form, while certain cuts of it are only supplied by order.
Fundamentally, the Maltese can survive without lamb in Easter, but chocolate eggs are a different story altogether. Easter eggs were one of the many traditions inherited by early Roman Catholics from their pagan predecessors – who used the egg as a symbol of earth’s rebirth in their spring celebrations.
It was Pope Gregory I, back in the 6th century, who urged missionaries to use old religious sites and festivals, and absorb them into Christian rituals where possible. That Mary Magdalene brought cooked eggs to share with other women at the tomb of Jesus, and that the eggs in her basket miraculously turned brilliant red after the ascension of Christ, is of course folklore.
Back to Malta: the wide practice of making chocolate eggs in village confectioneries in preparation for Easter has now almost become extinct as imported mass-produced Easter eggs have widely taken over the baton from local artisans.
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