sourdough

Countries with cultures more than a couple of thousands of years old typically get very enthusiastic about their breads, and with reason: for them, bread was truly the staff of life in a world where the food supply could often be precarious. But their breads also speak specifically to how life has been lived for generations in those places: what you had to bake with, what kind of grains you had to work with, what you had to eat with the bread after the baker's work was done. And Malta is definitely no exception to this rule.

Ħobż is the word for bread in Maltese. It arrived in the language from the Semitic-Arabic side of things -- no surprise, as Maltese is as profoundly influenced by Arabic languages as by the Latinate ones. And of course the Romans were here too -- Malta was a self-governing client nation of the Empire -- which is probably one of the reasons that Malta's baking is so good. Rome left a plethora of excellent baking techniques and technology behind it, and Roman-influenced bakers remain some of the best in the world.

Malta's Ħobż comes in many shapes, with local variations (see Dina's shot of bread in the marketplace here, and this image of the bread type called ftira). The thing that all the varieties seem to have in common is that they're all breads raised using a starter, and therefore (at least technically) are sourdoughs. Though some modern recipes do call for commercial yeast, there are Maltese bakers who insist they never use it, and there's the normal bragging and arguing about who has the best recipe or the oldest starter.

The recipe we're adapting here is complex enough that it looks like a fair approximation of what you might get if you bought a loaf of this most basic style of bread in Malta -- at least, the flavor should be close. It produces a bread that isn't incredibly sour-tasting (EuroCuisineGuy, who isn't a sourdough fan, ate several slices before he could be stopped...) and which has a nice tender / springy crumb and a super crust.

Please note: if you're just getting started at bread baking, this is probably not a recipe to attempt just yet, as it's fairly labor-intensive and a little tricky in its final stages. Try something simpler, like the New York Times no-knead bread method.)

Click "read more" for the Ħobż Malti recipe.