Christmas at Birgu

Heritage Malta organised a special trip to the Inqusitor's Palace in Birgu where they have a special exhibition of miniature cribs from around the world.  The visit also included demonstrations of traditional festive season recipes as well as the making of traditional crib figurines.  The photo that heads the post is of the making of chestnut sauce.

I've now become quite practiced at getting from Marsaxlokk to the Three Cities area - I simply got the bus from Marsaxlokk, got off at the far end of Paola and walked up over the hill past Kordin 3 temple (see previous post) and the Dockyards.  I arrived at the Inquisitor's Palace with some time to spare.  There was only one other person on the tour so we had the full attention of the curator of anthropology from Heritage Malta, Catherine Tabone, who was our guide. 

I have wandered through the Inquisitor's Palace before when I was in Birgu for the candlelit festival but it was good to visit again with a guide who was able to tell us about the gothic vaults and the history of the building which was one of the first to be constructed by the Knights.

The palace has become the permanent home for the collection of 512 miniature cribs which were bequeathed to Heritage Malta by Albert and Lina McCarthy.  They collected them over a lifetime of travel and they come from all over the world, made out of all kinds of material.  The one from Australia is a surprisingly traditional painting of the nativity on glass!

In the demonstration of traditional recipes we also got to try the delicious chestnut sauce, the rich bread pudding that tasted like traditional Christmas pudding and the superb mulled wine!  Christine is going to email me the recipes!

The making of figurines for the traditional Maltese cribs was demonstrated using old moulds also donated to Heritage Malta.  The figurines are made of unbaked clay and in addition to the nativity figures, they represent people in traditional Maltese village life - the shepherd, the orange seller, the baker, even the hunter with a gun!   The demonstrator had a series of figures and showed us the different stages from placing the clay in the mould to the final painting with acrylic paint.  The figures come out of the mould without arms and we were invited to choose a figure and add the arms and any accessories we wished.  I chose the only village woman and gave her a bowl of fruit and a duck at her feet for the hunter to shoot at.  Her picture will head up one of my later posts as I carried her in my hand around Birgu and into the dhaijsa across to Valletta, taking photos of her in various locations as the clay dried!