Cuisine of Menorca

Menorcan cuisine refers to the typical food and drink of Menorca.
Menorca is a rocky island in the Balearic archipelago in Spain, consisting of eight municipalities. Featuring a Mediterranean climate, the weather is milder in the south while in the north there are strong winds all year round. Marine salt, carried by the wind to the pastures where cows graze, is what gives the cheese its typical flavour. Seafood is a major element of the island's cuisine, but additionally, there are horses, pigs (used for cold cuts) and cows (the skin of which is used to produce leather, and the milk to produce cheese). Agriculture is small-scale and varied, consisting of typical Mediterranean products. Within this typical Mediterranean cuisine there are also the influences of various invading people, particularly the English, who brought plum cake, puddings, and punch. The rural and marine cuisine is mostly based on greens and vegetables from one's own garden, locally produced meat, and fish and seafood caught in the same day. Olive oil, although not produced on the island, is also a fundamental ingredient in local dishes.
Menorcan cuisine is generally simple and seasonal. It is based on fishing, particularly longline fishing, and on seafood, especially crustaceans, clams and squid. Fruits and vegetables are cultivated in as much variety as possible, and on a small scale, only for local consumption.
Until the second half of the twentieth century, goats were in such abundance that they were only eaten when there was a famine, caused by spoiled crops or insufficient fishing. Today, they are a luxury. Rabbit is another common element of the cuisine. In the seventeenth century, the English unsuccessfully attempted to introduce deer and hares. Few are left nowadays, but rabbits and various fowl are still hunted or bred.
In Menorca, some of the first written mentions of its cuisine are found in 1891, in notes belonging to Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria, who references some typical cooking but without any recipes. In 1923, Pedro Ballester published De re cibaria which collected a substantial part of popular wisdom and offered detailed anonymous recipes
Mediterranean crops had a strong influence, encouraging the use of olive oil, wine, legumes and foods pickled in salt. The substratum of Arab culture is also important, as well as additions from French and English cuisine, owing to their respective periods of control over the island in the eighteenth century.
Even today, when most products can be obtained all year round, Menorca has a seasonal cuisine, which varies ingredients and recipes according to the cycles of the seasons and recognized holidays.
Mayonnaise supposedly originates in the Menorcan city of Mahón. According to this theory, this sauce — an emulsion of eggs and olive oil — was brought to France following a brief French occupation of the island. According to a different theory, it was invented in a French town called Maiona, or perhaps Baiona. In any case, mayonnaise, with or without garlic, is a product of frequent use in the traditional cuisine of the island since ancient times, on its own or as an ingredient in dishes.
A local cheese is produced in Menorca: Mahón cheese. The cheese is classified as holding denominación de origen status in Spain, marking it as a unique product of the region. The cheese is pressed and has a characteristic orange colour, and rounded corners. In 1985, the protected name of the cheese was set as queso Mahón, and later, in 1998, the word Menorca was added, making the full name Mahón-Menorca. There are four main varieties, according to maturation time: mild, semi-mature, mature and aged. Ricotta or fresh cottage cheese is also made in dairy shops in Menorca.
With the exception of sobrassada, pork cold cuts made in Menorca are an evolution of the Roman legacy. The slaughter of the pigs, usually undertaken in winter, is called porquejades or porquetjades. Blood is added as an ingredient to some of these products, which gives them a black colour.
Similar to Catalan cuisine, only a few spices are used, but give each product a distinct flavor. Typical spices include black pepper, white pepper, paprika (in sobrassada), anise, cinnamon and salt. Some also add other typical Mediterranean spices such as thyme, rosemary and oregano.
• White botifarra has a grayish, clear brown color, since it doesn’t contain blood, and has the form of the ball that is used for escudella. It is made of meat and other parts of the pig and it is surrounded by a fine membrane. It is generally eaten cooked, usually fried.
• Black botifarra has the same ingredients and species as the white, but also contains pig blood. Its shape is like a fine botifarra. It is often eaten fried with sobrassada and it is sometimes eaten raw.
• Camallot [ca], is a cooked, black, and very greasy sausage, basically the same as Mallorcan camaiot but with less pellets. It usually contains minced pork, pig’s blood, black pepper, a pinch of paprika and anise. Its appearance is very different from the others, since it is inserted within a pig leg, where the name comes from. It is eaten raw, cut in very fine slices, or cooked.
• Menorcan sobrassada is thinner and less spicy than that of Mallorca.
Menorcan cuisine is very Mediterranean, rich in vegetables of all types. The island has been very self-sufficient providing these type of fresh products, thus they have never gone missing, thanks to the farming activity as part of the economy even to this day, time in which the crops represent approximately half of the Menorcan territory. The salad, hanging, bouquet tomatoes, etc. ,and other green vegetables to prepare salads and stir fry stand out—onions, Italian green peppers, red pepper, garlic—, Roman lettuce to prepare salads, Mediterranean green vegetables that are fried, stuffed or oven baked, like eggplant, that in Menorca is small and very white in its interior, a variety of the summer season that cannot be cultivated in a greenhouse, zucchini, that is prepared in a similar way, or the artichoke, that is also from a local variety, small, long, and purple-colored, that is eaten mainly as a side dish, battered and fried, oven-baked or in stews.
Fruits are also abundant, especially figs, that are also eaten in savoury dishes, like for example the oliaigua.
Local green vegetables are prepared a "thousand ways", some of the most common are the guixons, the habas, the lentils, and the chickpeas.
Mushrooms are very much appreciated, oven-baked, fried, with or without sauce to accompany meats, and the wild asparagus, very appreciated in the oliaigua (local soup) or simply with a tortilla.
Olive oil is the grease that is used to cook these dishes and is also common in pastry, while olives themselves are appreciated in this cooking, just like local capers. Until a few decades ago there were hundreds of olive trees in Menorca but nowadays these are not cultivated.
Some Menorcan dishes that contain these ingredients are:
A lot of salty products are made with wheat flour, many of which the bread dough often encircles the land's produce, like for example, the rubiols, the Minorcan flaons- salty pasta filled with cheese-, to the agujas or croissants – made with bread dough and shaped like a half moon – filled with sobrassada. The formatjades stand out, common in Easter time. The salty cocas are usually rectangular, open or closed, and can be traditionally filled with a stir-fry, vegetables or pepper, even though some have meat or fish. On Christmas Eve, it is common to eat, before the Midnight Mass, bread rolls filled with diced meat and soaked in milk and oven-cooked.
Sea products, for their insular condition, are widely consumed. Traditionally, Whitefish is used just the same- like for example, Goosefish or the Hake- like the Oily fish- like the Atlantic mackerel or the sardine, for example-, very fresh, bought the same day it is fished. The Scorpaena or scrofa, among them, is a highly appreciated and abundant fish. Another appreciated fish is the Rajiformes that can be oven-baked, grilled or in a paella.
A number of seafood, shells and mollusks are also used. These products, just like the earth products, change according to the season. They are cooked in pots or boilers, rice, and sometimes also in salty pies or puddings, oven-baked, grilled or in the oven. In Menorca there is a great tradition of eating varied fish, and even octopus or squid, in the form of meatballs. The cod ab burrida, that is prepared mixing cod sauce with garlic and oil dressing, is a dish that has the resemblance with others cooked in Catalonia, Provence, and other nearby areas.
Some Menorcan dishes with fish and seafood are:
Pig farming is common locally, because pigs are easy to raise and traditional sausages are very popular. There is also cattle farming, which is the traditional source of milk -to make cheese among other things, meat and hides; the latter being used as a raw material for the local traditional leather craftsmen. A very old recipe is, for example, the Feixets or Chaplain’s Partridges, thinly sliced veal rolls filled with boiled egg, bacon and sobrasada.
Lamb, chicken and rabbit are also consumed. There are local varieties of chicken and lamb.
Game meats, which are currently very limited, are mainly rabbits and birds. Rabbits are hunted with the help of dogs, including an indigenous breed, the Rabbit’s Dog, and shotguns, while for the haunting of birds, typical techniques are the use of decoy and the fencing in the neck.
Snails are also part of this gastronomy, both in simple preparations, with alioli, for example, and in many more sophisticated ones, such as snails with sea crab.
Some Menorcan dishes with meats or sausages are:
The Menorcan bakery, pastry, and dessert making incorporates ideas, techniques and products from cultures as diverse as Jewish, Arabic and English. The brief stay of the French in the island served to create the "Gató", according to the technique of the French housewives of the moment, but incorporating almonds in the recipe. From the British the islanders took a taste for puddings, they use Catalan cream abundantly; and they also use meringue in the Italian way, to take advantage of the egg whites to decorate desserts and cakes. This taste for very sweet recipes is shared in common with other neighbours in the southern Mediterranean.
CuinaArt Menorca is a gastronomic fair that is celebrated every April since 2007 as a showcase for Menorcan products. It consists of exhibitors, debates, tastings, conferences, etc. It is aimed at all types of public.