ŻURRIEQ — Mela, hekk sar il-festa. After council accountants said fireworks were a luxury this year, Żurrieq’s parish council quietly deputised a retired bus driver to fire pastizzi from a cherry-picker as what they insist on calling “austerity rockets.”
The scene on Saturday looked like every festa mash-up you’ve never asked for: a hydraulic arm slowly rising over the parish square while small, flaky parcels of ricotta and mushy peas arced towards the sky and landed — mostly — on pigeons and the band club’s tent. Locals held hymn books and napkins in the same hand.
Innovation or public danger?
Police have opened a probe into “unauthorised propulsion of baked goods” and possible breaches of noise and food-safety regulations. “We are treating it with the same seriousness as we would a fireworks inquiry,” said Insp. Pawlu Zerafa, standing beside a table of confiscated pastizzi labelled as evidence. “There was ricotta everywhere, ara. We must establish chain-of-custody. Also, someone needs to tell them that pastizzi are not certified as projectiles."
"I drove buses for 40 years. If you can park a double-decker on Triq San Pawl, you can launch a pastizzu,”
The parish council defended the stunt as “creative austerity.” Marija, the treasurer, said the idea was born in a budget meeting after someone suggested sacrificing the fireworks budget in favour of more practical staples. “Inħobbu l-festa u nħobbu l-pastizzi,” she said. “This way, kulħadd jieħu ċ-ċikkulata u jara ċ-ċelebrazzjoni.”
Not everyone was impressed. The parish priest sent two urgent pastoral letters expressing concern that the culinary act bordered on sacrilege. “The pastizz is for communal comfort, not combustion,” the first letter read. The second asked residents to pray for the departed filo.
Meanwhile, an EU trade delegation arrived unannounced, clipboard in hand, requesting a formal tasting protocol. “We see potential for standardisation and export,” said Karmenu Dalli from the delegation. “But first, can someone provide us with a risk assessment and a recipe?”
Neighbours complained about flying grease, pigeons with puff pastry beaks, and one particularly ambitious pastizz that landed in a priest’s biretta. The fire brigade clarified they were not called because of flames, but because the cherry-picker operator forgot to bring a ladder to retrieve a stuck pastizz.
At press time, the parish council was drafting a €3,700 guideline titled ‘Safe Pastizzi Launching: A Protocol for Faith-Based Food Flight.’ Uwejja, qed naraw kollox.