Baking with passion

This week saw the fruition of a dream Debono has held close to his heart for a number of years, the opening of a showcase of traditional Maltese cuisine including his much loved bread.

"We are in danger of losing our local cuisine as a result of imports of so many ingredients.

"I'm not against the progress and the introduction of new things however I think it is a shame to forget the past because of fancy vegetables like the cherry tomato."

Nenu's in Valletta is a traditional style bakery that doubles as a restaurant serving traditional dishes from the past - particularly the Maltese ftira stuffed with a variety of ingredients, baked in the oven and served like a pizza.

For Debono, sticking to the original recipe is what keeps traditional dishes traditional, particularly so with bread, and bastardisation of bread recipes have led to a large number of substandard variations of the Maltese loaf.

As many good bakers are, Debono is from Qormi, from a family of generations of bakers.

"When I first took over the bakery from my father in 1973, we used the traditional methods of making bread, where the most important equipment in the factory was our hands and a stone oven."

After a number of years Debono started to look into the purchase of new machinery to modernise the production process. Debono said that the use of modern machinery affecting the quality of the bread is a common misconception.

"The secret to the Maltese loaf is time and sticking to the recipe. And by the recipe I do not mean only the ingredients that go into the bread but also the timing of the production process.

"If it took an hour to bake the bread in a traditional oven it is important to make sure that the modern ovens are kept at the same temperature a stone oven would keep so that the bread cooks in the same amount of time. Like you wouldn't remove a baby from its mother's womb before its time, a Maltese loaf needs the right amount of time to develop flavours and aromas.

"It is easy, and more efficient, to crank up the heat and reduce the baking time, however this affects the quality of the bread and it is the major cause for a lot of inferior bread on the market.

"The stone oven use direct heat from fire while the deck ovens use indirect heat through pipes warmed up by gas, diesel or oil, however it is possible to get the same effect from modern ovens as with the traditional stone ones.

"One other important aspect of Maltese bread is the sour dough that we keep from the last batch of bread and then add to the next. This influences the aroma and the taste as well as increases the shelf-life of the bread."

While on a quest for the best machines on the market, Debono visited a number of exhibitions abroad, and this is where he started to appreciate how good Maltese bread really is.

"It is not only the taste of the bread that, in my opinion, makes Maltese bread superior, but also the nutritional value. In a Maltese loaf the only ingredients are flour, water, salt, yeast and sour dough, while in a lot of other breads produced around the world there are also many other ingredients including sugar, margarine and other additives."

In a world where carbohydrates are the devil, Debono saw the need to educate people in the true nutritional value of Maltese bread and held a seminar in 2007 on Maltese bread, which included aspects such as nutritional value, hygiene in the bakery, bread as traditional heritage and the religious aspects of bread in Malta.

The seminar was attended by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition as well as being packed out by doctors, lawyers, professors and health care professionals. Encouraged by the turnout, Debono sought to take advantage of this interest and set about trying to find the right spot for a place to showcase.

"It is difficult to explain to people what I had in mind. I wanted to invest in something completely Maltese - a showcase of the things we do so well in this country, and bread is at the centre of everything.

"So many Maltese products go well with bread - olive oil, tomatoes, honey. All the products we sell are strictly Maltese, including our extensive wine."

If you're after a Coke then this not the right place to find it, with only Maltese Kinnie on the menu.

The search for the ideal venue was a long and arduous one. Though Debono originally wanted to set the place up in his hometown of Qormi, the lack of ideal premises pushed Debono into going for an old bakery in the heart of Valletta.

Both locals and tourists can get involved in the baking process and make their own ftiras at the bakery. Supplied with bread dough and other ingredients, patrons can decide on how best they like their bread and make it themselves. The baker will then bake the bread and serve it to patrons.

"This is something I saw at an exhibition whilst abroad. People like to be able to touch and make the food themselves. It will also give tourists the opportunity to take part in the Maltese experience."

"So far we have had a good response to our product, though it is slow, however I do believe that when growth is slow it will continue, so we are looking forward to the future and new opportunities it may bring.