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MALTESE RECIPES | |
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Richard Ellis - Malta
THE FISH MARKET OF A CENTURY AGO
Marsamxett Harbour, Photo: Kurt Arrigo
Any harbour is always full of activity... ships coming in to unload and load passengers and merchandise. Other ships berthing to get a well deserved rest from their long, difficult and sometimes rough journeys. Provisions needing to be taken on board, and people hustling around looking for a bargain. Without any doubt there would also he the fishermen who would be selling their freshly-caught fish to the consumers. Until the beginning of the 20th century, when no Fisheries Department existed in the Maltese Islands, fishermen used to sell their catches directly to the general public, although middlemen existed as well.
From the time of the Order of St. John a lot of activity started at the centred around the Grand Harbour, the Valletta side of which was very much in evidence in all of this activity. There was the Health Section, where quarantine rules were enforced, the Customs House and the fish market.
The latter was a dominant feature of the area. When in 1615 Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt's project of bringing fresh water to Valletta on an aquaduct was completed, a fountain was inaugurated in the area. The big basin was dominated by the column and the bronze statue of Neptune. The fountain was one of the main features of the Valletta harbour, where fishermen used to stop in order to wash and clean their fish before selling them. This is where the fish market was.
 Old paintings and engravings invariably show the hustle and bustle of the area. Among the merchants and their boats one would notice women
buying and haggling on the prices of fish. Others would be seen washing and cleaning the same fish, using the water that would be flowing down into the sea from the fountain above. Selling the fish during the time of the Knights was controlled by a number of regulations. Fish hawkers had to be licensed, while prices were also controlled by the government of the day.
During the middle of the 19th century the fountain was dismantled. Neptune's statue was resited in Valletta, in the main courtyard of what is now the Palace of the President. A number of small stalls and shops were built around the old perimeter where there used to be the fountain. The fish market continued to function from this restricted place, but at the same time from its original place as it had been for over 200 years.
After the establishment of the Fisheries Department in the early 20th century, the old fish market was moved to more hygienic premises, within walking distance from the old site. While previously fish used to be cleaned and sold around the fountain base area, now the fish had to be taken in for weighing and checking and subsequently sold to the middlemen. The old fish market in Valletta is no longer there. Due to modern roadwork it has lost all vestiges of the past, and the only things that have survived are old photographs and paintings depicting a way of life that is long gone. |
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