day 1

After a day of airport-hopping including getting a last-minute handwritten boarding pass for the plane to malta and a meal that consisted of rabbit, gozo cheese and date cake, I made it to Malta. Two fellow students met me in Heathrow airport and the three of us arrived in the tiny international airport of Malta (and by tiny I mean there were two stalls in the bathroom, and about ten departure gates total) and found a taxi to the ferry that would take us to Gozo. In the taxi, in which I sat on the passenger's (left) side in the front, I realized why driving is #2 on the top ten list of things to avoid in Malta in the traveler's guide I bought. Our driver knew the streets well but it was a unique experience flying down narrow streets on which we had to pull over to the side to let other cars pass and traffic lanes seemed to be nothing more than suggestions for our driver and anyone else. At one point, slowed down by roundabout, a man drove by in a two-wheeled horse drawn cart.
We made it to the guesthouse where we're staying and found our rooms which are extremely nice and have four beds apiece, a kitchen, a sitting room and bathroom. Today we've been primarily meeting other participants and settling into the area, which several students and I did by exploring the nearby town of Victoria. We were dropped off there in the morning by some staff going to buy supplies and explored the town and then made a 45-minute walk back to Xlendi, where we're staying. No classes have happened yet, but we're getting to know the area and each other. The photos below are from this morning's trip to Victoria.

not to be cliche...

...but: they do things DIFFERENTLY with food in Malta.

*gasp*

Not to heighten the 'us vs. them' paradigm that so often infiltrates enthographic research, but there's just something appealing about experiencing a cuisine that's so unlike what I'm used to. Apparently Maltese cuisine is more than great seafood and beer.
One of the favorite local dishes: Fenek, or rabbit stew. It's a rabbit cooked in wine sauce. Mmm.
And on the sweet side, the pastizzi - a food so ingrained in Maltese culture that the expression 'selling like pastizzi' has come to express a good economic situation. The word 'pastizz' in Maltese has also become a slang term for 'idiot' or 'buffoon' according to the Wikipedia article on Maltese cuisine.
As someone recently coming to appreciate cheeses other than the sliced Kraft variety, I'm interested in trying Ġbejniet, or Gozitan sheep milk cheese.
A flavor of soft drink different from most I've heard of, Kinnie is a savory-sounding drink made from 'bitter oranges and aromatic herbs' that is sometimes served before a meal to open the palate. Not surprisingly, Coca Cola has marketed a similar drink, Krest, in Malta that is also flavored like bitter oranges.

tourist takeover?

One thing I was wondering about after paging through my Malta travel guide from Lonely Planet was the ease of finding actual traditionally prepared Maltese dishes in a country that's largely dependent on catering (literally) to tourist tastes. Even my guidebook was skeptical about finding quality dishes and lamented that many menus simply contain your run-of-the-mill pizza, pasta and sandwiches. This video from YouTube demonstrates one couple's frustration with the local fast food.

narrowing the focus

I've been thinking some more about what to focus on for my project once I'm in Malta. Looking back over the itinerary for last year's program I was encouraged to see that the field school sets aside one day to study food anthropology and food preservation techniques from Malta. Hopefully that will function as a springboard for more things about food and culture that I can study that are specific to Malta itself.

Aside from that I've been thinking about two major themes that might be worth pursuing for my study. The first is a study of "insider vs. outsider" mentality that I thought of when Adam brought up a story one of the professors at K-State used to illustrate "belonging" to a culture - that when a foreigner can enjoy a certain dish that is linked to a place's identity, that can make them "one of us." In Malta, a place that has come to thrive on tourism and is dependent on the influence of outsiders, I thought it would be interesting to see what the Maltese people think of tourists and the way they eat, and to see whether tourism has had an impact on what types of food the island produces and prepares.

Another track that could be equally of interest is that of consumer culture, and how food is marketed and presented in Malta, and how people interact when they eat - whether it's more a "grab-and-go" culture revolving around rigid schedules or more of the laid-back stereotypical European mealtime culture where eating is a social ritual and meals encourage interaction and stimulate conversation.

Of course it would be ideal to look at both aspects as well as some different aspects of the culture since the program guide stresses that "die-hards will of course have 2 or 3 projects going simultaneously." I'm also intrigued by the use of space and studying the megalithic temples that are the oldest free-standing structures in the world. But at least I have some ideas for my main focus and now I can concentrate on more detailed research to come up with questions to ask. It's hard to believe it's only 10 days until I'll be leaving the country!

amateurs

Apparently you can be an amateur appreciator of the culinary arts...a foodie to be precise. Thanks to Wikipedia for pointing out the difference between the less cultivated foodies and more refined gourmets.

why food?

So why study food for my field study project? To me, the most interesting aspects of culture to study are those that make us uniquely human. My primary concentration for my undergraduate degree is linguistic anthropology. It fascinates me to study the origins of words, alphabets, sounds - the things we use and combine to communicate with one another. Sure, birds and baboons communicate with each other as well, but they don't have stories and songs, they can't talk about past events and relate their culture's history to their offspring. I originally wanted to do a project relating to the language, but realized that it would be difficult to go in depth into any aspect of the Maltese language with only 3 weeks to spend doing research on location.

So, after spending quite a while unsure of what I wanted to do, I thought why not food? It's something we deal with every day, and so do most other humans on the planet. While for some it is a daily struggle to find something to eat, others make a career creating gourmet meals for 5-star restaurants, catered to palates that crave fine wine and hors d'oeuvres - as much status symbols as sustenance.

Not only is food part of one's social identity, but part of family tradition - recipes are passed down from generation to generation; certain cultural holidays are incomplete without certain traditional dishes. Also, a country's location and the foods it can grow, import and export have certainly had an effect on that country's interaction with others throughout history.

While I have yet to narrow my focus, there seem to be a lot of options worth exploring in the realm of food and its effects on trade, tradition, nutrition and identity. In particular, I'm curious about the human palate and why certain things taste "good" to certain people. As stated by Robin Fox in an excerpt from Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective, "all animals eat but we are the only animal that cooks." While there are many other things that distinguish humans from the rest of the animal world, it is interesting to see how we take what could be bland sustenance and turn it into an act of pleasure - or don't, depending on desire or economic ability.

In any event, food should be interesting to study in the Mediterranean where we'll be surrounded by fishing communities, and open air markets. Trade will also be an important area to look at, as Malta has to import most of the crops it needs since it is not well suited for agricrulture. At the field school, we're encouraged to cook on our own as well, which should make for interesting participant observation. I hope to gain a better insight into how food in entwined in culture, especially one other than my own.