The Gozo Regional Development Foundation has contributed a video to the online format entitled “How it is made”, on the occasion of the event Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2020, organised by the European Office of Slow Food International.
The video deals with the production of sea salt in Gozo, an activity that has a long tradition in Gozo. The saltpans found near Marsalforn are still used today. It’s fascinating to walk along them, very early in the morning, and to watch the salt being collected as it glistens under the rising sun.
For this video we interviewed Leli tal-Melħ.
Salt from Xwejni is harvested once a week, roughly between the summer months of mid-May up till the beginning of September, if the weather permits. The weather plays a crucial part in every single harvest, with hot, sunny days being perfect for the harvesting of the salt. Stormy and rainy days, on the other hand, disrupt the salt-making process and no salt is collected.
After every harvest, each salt pan is manually and individually filled with water through the use of a motor pump, transferring water from the big pools to the small pans. These are then left to dry for about 7 days and the salt crystals start to form. The brine in the big pools is already very highly concentrative relative to the open sea, and therefore the crystallisation process happens much quicker and results in a fresh collection every week.
To this day, salt is harvested using brooms and brushes with thick bristles, the salt from each pan being swept and gathered into small heaps and placed in buckets. These buckets are then transferred to a flat drying surface, and a big heap of salt is formed that is then covered with cloth and left to dry for about 24 hours. The next day the dry salt is packed into 30-kilogram bags and stored.