Snapshots of an Island

Sometimes it happens that I come across a scene that looks perfect to my eyes – the colours and the textures working together to create an imprint in my mind; and since I want to record that imprint forever, out comes my camera and I snap a shot. It’s a moment in late spring and all three plants in the photo are in bloom: to the left - a cactus plant that will give us prickly pear fruits in September (you can read more about prickly pears here); to the right -  a red oleander and, at the bottom of the photo, a caper bush (which I talked about in my post When The Capers Bloom), all growing alongside a rubble wall. I like to call rubble walls ‘the stone hedges of Malta’. Rubble walls serve as retaining and boundary walls and are built without the use of cement or mortar. It takes skillful builders to ensure that the walls remain erect just by placing stones in such a way that they lock and stay in place.

Photographed at Delimara

The pop of red from the oleander provides the perfect hue for this week’s Ruby Tuesday. Other Ruby Tuesday posts may be viewed at Work Of The Poet.

From mid-June to early July you will see people picking the caper buds that grow on wild bushes in the countryside. If you have never eaten capers, it is very hard to describe what they taste like. When first picked from the bushes they have a bland taste but after they are pickled in brine or vinegar (or a mixture of both) they will develop a sharp, tangy taste.

Photo source 

When I was a young girl I often used to go and cut capers with my parents, but especially with my father. Even as I write this I can feel the heat of the sun drenched rocks and the silence enveloping everything – broken only by the shrill screech of some lonely cicada (some years they start their ‘singing’ early depending on how hot the weather is). The grass would be dry beneath our feet but, in the fields, we would discern the blush of peaches and plums through the leaves. It always felt good to be out there in the valleys, enjoying a glimpse of some shy lizard that happened to cross our path and delighting in the sight of butterflies and dragonflies dancing and dipping over our heads.

Photo source 

The caper buds do not last very long and soon the buds will bloom into beautiful little flowers. It is then, when the capers bloom, that the heat seems to intensify and summer hits us in full force with its fiery breath.

The weeks ahead are an endless mesh of scorching hot days and balmy nights as the caper flowers wither and their beauty fades. But every time I add the caper buds to our sauces or our food, their tangy, aromatic taste takes me right back to my childhood, to the parched fields and the butterflies and to the time when the capers bloom.

You can go here and here for more information on capers and their use in different recipes.