ICE-CREAM FOR GRAND MASTER
While the Inquisitor attended to his duties in the upper floors of his grand palace, cooks were preparing ice cream in the kitchen downstairs – a cool treat in the sweltering Maltese heat!
Research Credit: Dr Noel Buttigieg
A sophisticated kitchen
The kitchen complex at the Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu is most likely Malta’s best documented early modern kitchen. Inventories drawn up in the 17th and 18th centuries are proof that the place was fully equipped to cater for the Inquisitor’s refined palate and his desire to impress important guests and sustain his retinue and inmates. His kitchen boasted a multitude of utensils befitting lavish tastes. Between 1664 and 1759, it featured the requisite apparatus to preserve ice and prepare ice cream. By 1798, the Inquisitor had amassed several ice cream containers used to entertain his guests.
Ice-Cream, a real treat!
“Remember, freezers had not been invented yet, so to make ice cream, large quantities of snow and ice were brought over from Sicily! Salt had to be added to lower its temperature and prepare ice-cream or sorbet”
For the Maltese, particularly the nobility, indulging in ice cream provided a welcome reprieve from the relentless summer heat. According to food historian Noel Buttigieg, there are 17th- and 18th-century references to foreigners who were impressed with the common consumption of cold drinks and ice cream. Roland de la Platiere, in 1776, attested to the year-round enjoyment of ice in Malta.
The sorbetiere was usually made of metal, the cylindrical vessel was nestled into a wooden bucket containing a mixture of ice and salt, with the ice cream mix then poured inside the sorbetiere.
