"Ħobżna ta' Kuljum" : Qormi bakeries and the role of bread in society

Abstract

This study focuses on the bakers in Qormi. Qormi has always been associated with Maltese bread. The subject of my dissertation, has more implications than meet the eye. When I began my fieldwork in Qormi, I thought that bread simply meant mixing a few ingredients and placing a few varieties of bread into an oven for an hour and selling the final golden brown Hobza tal-Malti (Lit. Maltese loaf), and a few ftajjer (Lit. Flat loaves) at the most. This grave misconception obviously worried me no end. Eventually, the problems that I had to face were quite the opposite. I was inundated with a wealth of information, and issues worthy of discussion, of which I had to select but a few.