A decade after the vibrant carnival farce il-Qarċilla was resurrected on Maltese streets, a crucial missing piece of its history has finally been found.

This year, the original il-Qarċilla – a sweet, ring-shaped bread – has been revived, completing the full circle of the cherished Maltese tradition. 

The recipe, lost to time, has been meticulously pieced together by academics and historians and brought to life by one of Malta’s leading bakeries. This brings back not just a theatrical performance but a tangible, edible symbol of carnival’s past, truly completing the revival of the old tradition.

What happened?

Il-Qarċilla is a carnival street theatre performance in the Maltese language dating back to at least the 18th century, during which the audience was treated to a farce in the form of a mock marriage contract. It is believed that the most well-known version was written by Dun Feliċ Demarco for the 1760 carnival.

The central theme revolves around a fictional marriage contract. Characters declare gifts, promises and humorous pronouncements, all meticulously documented by a mock notary.

The entire performance would be delivered in rhyming verses and was renowned for its witty and often biting satire, tackling social and political issues of the day.

This year’s performances of Il-Qarċilla were held at Spazju Kreattiv and behind the parliament building in Valletta. Photo: Dorian Bugeja

Rachel Micallef was one of the actors in Il-Qarcilla.

Actors play the parts of a notary, a groom, a bride and witnesses who give absurd gifts to the couple. These include chairs that collapse, a single sock or a donkey with one missing leg and another paralysed leg. 

It was social commentary by the poor on their often-miserable condition but also a form of satire mocking rich weddings, during which the affluent bride and groom’s families showered each other with valuable gifts.

Unable to match that wealth, the poor would take to the streets at carnival, shedding light on their harsh reality.

The gifts exchanged in the mock wedding were purposefully empty, such as a chest with no lid or bottom, or a house with no walls. 

Priests and sex

The oldest surviving script was written by a priest and it is surprisingly extremely heavy on vulgarity and sexual innuendos, such as reference to a bride who loves to eat sausage.

Fr Demarco’s Qarċilla even includes outright explicit words referring to male and female genitalia.

Modern academics are not sure how 18th-century Malta – with its strict, repressed culture and heavy-handed Church – allowed for that material to be written (by priests, of all people) and performed in front of families with children on the streets. But some believe the reason was exactly that – an outpouring of repression.

The Qarċilla served as social commentary by the poor on their often-miserable condition.

Today, we often perceive carnival as primarily a children’s celebration, they argue. But it has lost much of its original character, which was closely tied to the period preceding Lent, a time of true abstinence. 

Carnival used to be three days of unrestrained revelry at a time when, in a repressed society with strict limitations, people – even priests – could seemingly do anything without consequence.

Farce revived

The farce died away and was lost for centuries, before university lecturer and researcher Olvin Vella, along with then-research student Conrad Fenech, unearthed the details of the tradition from several old texts around a decade ago.

There was no reason why the tradition should not be revived, they thought, and it was just a matter of time before theatre producer Joseph Galea took on the challenge with some fellow actors.

People watching a performance of Il-Qarċilla during the carnival weekend.

The farce has been performed in theatres and on the streets in Valletta every carnival since, each year keeping with the same, centuries-old formula but with different scripts every year.

Although the 18th-century versions concentrated on social issues, the modern adaptations often also include political commentary and references to pop culture.

Missing piece

One crucial element of the tradition, however, had remained buried in the past.

For years, many believed il-Qarċilla solely referred to the theatrical performance. But whispers in old texts hinted at another truth. 

Il-Qarċilla, it turns out, was originally a ring bread, a symbol of eternity, that was handed out to carnival revellers who joined the street spectacle. The spectacle, in fact, got its name from the bread.

The bread itself, a sweet, white loaf, tells a tale of social disparity. At a time when the poor subsisted on humble brown bread, il-Qarċilla, a symbol of abundance, was reserved for the wealthy. And it was the very marriages of the rich and elite that the carnival event so gleefully mocked and satirised.

The ring shape, representing the unending circle of marriage, added another layer to the satire.

Maypole resurrected the long-lost bread in their bakeries this year. Photo: Maypole Bakery

But the recipe faded from memory, vanishing from Maltese kitchens and bakeries. Until now, when another university researcher, Michael Spagnol, was tasked with writing the script for this year’s farce in Valletta.

Spagnol thought that, if the theatrical tradition was to truly be revived in all its glory, it could not leave out the very object it takes its name from, and modern audiences deserved to also get a piece of that bread at the end of the performance, just like their ancestors did centuries ago.

That is how the culinary mystery buried deep within Malta’s past was unearthed. With the expert help of university researcher in food culture Noel Buttigieg, researchers meticulously pieced together fragments of information from ancient documents and managed to resurrect the culinary relic.

They took the recipe to the people at Maypole who were more than happy to bring it to life in their bakery and sold it in their stores during carnival time.

This year, il-Qarċilla was performed four times at Spazju Kreattiv and eight times last Saturday and Sunday in Valletta, in the original, traditional format, attracting hundreds of carnival goers who, at the end, were also treated to the sweet bread.