The Essential Guide To Eating Pastizzi… As Told By Air Malta’s Inflight Magazine
Pastizzi: the quintessential Maltese pastry shaped just like a.. pastizz. Which one came first? Definitely the pastizzi… our crude humour then took over and had to turn everything dirty. That’s a little bit of history you won’t learn from the AirMalta inflight magazine. What you can learn, however, is how to go about eating one, and we couldn’t be happier.
We’re not talking just pulling up on a street corner and halting all traffic. No, we’re talking the full Pastizzi Experience.
As the article suggests, there are six steps to enjoying your pastizz in perfect bliss.
Written by Sarah Chircop, the piece is as good an introduction to Malta’s delicious traditional snack as we could hope for, and we’re so grateful it exists. Sarah, we salute you!
Being the eternally hungry people we are, though, we feel the first point is obvious, because everyone should always go for wieħed u wieħed and cover all the food groups in one go (pastizzi fact: some versions of the mushy peas contain bacon, so they’re are not suitable for vegans).
Of course, you can now up that order from ‘one and one’ to ‘wieħed minn kollox‘ (one of each) and bag yourself (literally) a piżelli, irkotta, tiġieġ u faqqiegħ, Nutella… and of course the zalzett u ġbejna (for a limited time) to cure that nasty hangover with.
Step 2 and 3 go hand in hand, with a confident approach.
Don’t bin your bag – you will need it.
One napkin (or the mountain the guy behind the counter throws at you) will not be enough. These bad boys are greasy in the greatest of ways, and while you might feel shy of walking in public with some glint on your chin, you’ll have to look past that all because, if anything, strangers will be staring at you for the crumbs on your chest more than anything (because why have you wasted those crunchy morsels?).
Granted that this is an inflight magazine targeting the many tourists that flock to the island for a week of seshes and benders (soak it up, yo), steps 4 and 5 are reminders that the best things really do come in small packages.
And then we get to the second, third, fourth – oh no it’s finished, let’s go back for another one, bite.
Step 6 is where the magic happens…
It’s all about appreciating the little package of tradition you’ve engulfed/inhaled/annihilated.
Ya goddamned right it’s good.
And thanks to the gorgeous illustrations by local artist Ryan Falzon, the piece really does come to life. I mean, guys, if that amazing final tile of pastizzi crumbles and that golden eight-pointed cross doesn’t make you feel patriotic AF, we don’t know what will.