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There was
a time when housewives hardly left their
homes except for some church devotions:
everything for the home could be obtained
from hawkers who plied the streets from dawn
to dusk. These hawkers or pedlars did not
all come at the same time, but appeared on
the scene at times conveniently spread out
during the day.
Each pedlar or hawker had his own particular
cry not only to advertise his wares, but
also to announce his arrival in a particular
street. The regularity of time of day, as
well as day of the week and season, were
most convenient for the clients who expected
them.
Hawkers, of whom a large percentage were
women, arrived on the streets often after
travelling long journeys on foot, balancing
pails or baskets on their heads and using
their hands for the rest. Others arrived
pushing a small hand-cart loaded with wares,
and several came with horse or donkey
pulling a bigger cart. Milk was delivered
warm in the container, straight from the
goat. There were no refrigerators, so the
goatherd came morning and early afternoon
with a handful of goats. Fresh eggs, herbs
for pot and remedies, fruits, vegetables of
all types in sacks or canework baskets, soft
cheeselets in pails of brackish water, also
peppered or dry.
Another milk product was the rikotta,
warm-processed in salt water. The hawker
carried it in wicker baskets to keep shape,
and took it out to cut portions with a
string for his customers.
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Live chickens and rabbits in cages or odd ones in a
sack; the housewife often wanted them killed on the
spot, and the rabbits skinned and cleaned before
payment. Salted fish, local sausages, capers, red
peppers, boiled beans and other choice preparations
for the salad dish.
The fishmonger came any day, but definitely on
Fridays when religious custom discouraged the eating
of meat. He also came on New Years day when fish
brought good luck to the family, but was often
unavailable when bad weather made fishing
impossible.
Odd small-time hawkers came with other commodities
such as local honey and orange-blossom water, both
valued, apart from herbs, for their medicinal
properties. Salt came in sacks, collected from local
saltpans well before first rains.
The breadseller came with a large, lidded, wooden
box on a cart, containing small or large loaves from
which he cut portions to weigh out for the customer,
Later breadsellers, coming mainly from the Qormi
region, had large, yellow horsedrawn boxes,
specially made for all their needs. In summer came
black and white mulberries in small, long narrow
baskets covered with vine leaves to protect them
from insects. Prickly pears, which were skinned for
customers on their plates, came in pails of water on
a cart.
Sea urchins were carried on the hawkers back in a
large, elongated can basket; this he deposited on
the ground, and with a large knife cut the prickly
urchins into halves on a block of wood attached to
the basket edge. He was often followed by some boys
selling clams and limpets straight from the sea.
Summer could also bring out the water seller, with a
small barrel suspended on a shoulder strap. Apart
from these items one would have needed could be
obtained from the street hawkers. Cloth came on the
hawkers shoulder supported with the very yardstick
he used to measure it out. All these hawkers, coming
on foot or riding, also congregated in convenient
marketplaces close to the churches, especially on
Sundays. They were the precursors of the present,
post-war generation of hawkers who carry their
wares' in vans and trucks, while most other items
are conveniently found in supermarkets by the modem,
active, working housewife. |
