It felt a bit like a school prize-giving ceremony, except that many of the prize-winners failed to turn up. This was the press launch for Puerto Alcúdia's annual cuttlefish feast of a fiesta, at which representatives of some of the restaurants taking part were in attendance in order to collect their tin cuttlefish: or maybe they weren't made of tin, just that they seemed to ping a bit.
On the old pier in the port is a building which is that of the brotherhood of fishermen, a collective, the mention of which, in certain quarters, inspires, if that's the right word, a musical outburst of a Eurovision nature. I've no idea why. It was here that the launch took place, and also lunch. There was a lot of cuttlefish (sepia) in different styles. The chap from the Pane y Vino restaurant seemed to be the one who had been handed responsibility for overseeing it all.
It wouldn't of course be an official Alcúdia event if the mayor wasn't dragged along. Poor chap seemed to be suffering a bit of a cold. Normally, you don't have flash and TV cameras pointing at you when it comes to that awful how do I cope with the result of my chesty cough moment. There can be few worse things; realising your flies are open being one of them. And no, they weren't.
The government, the Balearic one that is, had sent its own emissary, in the form of the minister for agriculture and fisheries. There was a lot of stuff about quality. She went on a bit. The audience, none of them seated, were beginning to shuffle their feet and take a greater interest in the photos on the wall. Actually, some of the photos are fascinating as they show the history of the port area and will be an exhibition at this weekend's boat fair, which coincides with the cuttlefish do. I recommend you go and have a look.
The audience, though, may have been getting agitated as they were anticipating receiving their tin cuttlefish. What a fine souvenir for the participating restaurants. A flat brown thing shaped like a cuttlefish, well sort of, if you can imagine a cuttlefish having been squashed, but looking more like a painter might hold it in one hand. There were words about the fair of 2009 scratched onto it. I'm not sure what the restaurants are meant to do with them. That's probably why so few of them had bothered to turn up to collect them. That's where the prize-giving came in. Caty, who runs fairs and markets, for the town hall, and who some of you may recognise as also running the flower shop-cum-supermarket next to Little Britain, read out a list of restaurants and cafés. It was as though she was going through the register. The names of the naughty ones who had nicked off were duly noted; well by me at any rate. Bodega d'es Port, Jardín, La Traviata, Nova Marina, Piero Rossi and many more. None of them had turned up. Was it a coincidence that those who had were probably all less well known? Or perhaps they just hadn't got a tin cuttlefish.
Being a prize-giving here, there was a whole load of kissing going on when the restaurants' representatives walked forward to claim their painter's palette. Caty, the minister, the chap from the brotherhood of fishermen, the mayor; all had to be kissed, both cheeks. Clearly, no-one else had noticed the mayor's earlier phlegmatic dilemma.
The sepia and boat fairs take place in Puerto Alcúdia on 4 and 5 April. See the WHAT'S ON BLOG (http://www.wotzupnorth.blogspot.com) for information.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gskAeWgEExk). Today's title - I'm going to put the video up tomorrow, unless you pay me a lot a money.
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
Index for March 2009
Advertising - 14 March 2009
Albufereta - 9 March 2009
Balearic Government - 19 March 2009
Beach towels - 5 March 2009
Boat and sepia fairs, Puerto Alcúdia - 5 March 2009, 27 March 2009, 31 March 2009
Café Bony - 6 March 2008
Can Ramis building collapse - 11 March 2009, 12 March 2009
Catalan and promotion - 24 March 2009
Copyright - 29 March 2009
Corruption - 23 March 2009
Cyclists - 22 March 2009, 24 March 2009
Driving test - 7 March 2009
E. coli - 9 March 2009
Economic crisis - 14 March 2009
Eroski - 24 March 2009
Expatriates - 19 March 2009, 30 March 2009
Fairline - 13 March 2009
Fira Nàutica Mostra Sípia 2009, 27 March 2009, 31 March 2009
Google maps - 18 March 2009
History, Alcúdia - 3 March 2009
Holes - 18 March 2009
Holiday lets - 9 March 2009, 10 March 2009
Homelessness - 8 March 2009
Hunters' fair, Pollensa - 1 March 2009, 9 March 2009
Inca - 7 March 2009
Jeremy Clarkson - 30 March 2009
JK's Bar - 6 March 2009
Landscapes - 17 March 2009
Lucky-lucky men - 2 March 2009
Mike Oldfield - 28 March 2009
Names - 13 March 2009
Pirated goods - 2 March 2009
Publishing - 25 March 2009
Puerto Pollensa building work - 1 March 2009, 21 March 2009
Puerto Pollensa market square - 20 March 2009
Puerto Pollensa swimming pool - 1 March 2009
Roundabouts - 11 March 2009, 12 March 2009, 20 March 2009, 21 March 2009
Sa Pobla-to-Alcúdia railway - 2 March 2009, 5 March 2009, 13 March 2009, 15 March 2009
Sandwich and Moments - 13 March 2009
Scandal - 19 March 2009
Selling in bars - 29 March 2009
Sleeplessness - 26 March 2009
Supermarkets - 24 March 2009
Tourism promotion- 16 March 2009
Tourism spend - 1 March 2009
Tourist offices - 23 March 2009
Vora Mar Restaurant, Cala San Vicente - 28 March 2009
Water - 4 March 2009
Showing posts with label Nautical fair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nautical fair. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
We Are The Moles
Town and port. "Poble" and "moll". The "frontier" between Alcúdia town and port is the cemetery road that leads down to the horse roundabout. Those who live and work down in the port area are the "moll" people*. The distance between Alcúdia's port and town may be negligible compared to that which exists between the towns and ports (pobles and molls) of its close neighbours - Pollensa, Muro, Santa Margalida - but distance there still is and has been in terms of centres of power and the annual demonstrations of local pride, the fairs. So, deprived of their own fair and obliged to undertake the arduous journey to the old town, the "moll" people asked, why can't we have our own fair? They asked, and quite remarkably they got. Land and sea. Town and port. The mayor, the current incumbent, Miquel Ferrer, seemed to think it was a pretty good idea, and it was therefore decided that the October Alcúdia Fair in the old town would be reserved for crafts, for agriculture, for machines, for the land in other words; the new fair - that combining boats and one of the fruits of the local Mediterranean - would be for the sea.
This year sees the staging of the fourth annual joint nautical and cuttlefish fair. It was the fishermen of the port who helped to create the event, the nautical element of the October fair being spun out and joined with the sepia (or at least the cooking thereof) which, in March and April, is at its most abundant. The fishermen's calendar is determined by what proliferates in the local waters, and it was the sepia that won the rights to its own gig, together with the re-located boats.
Sepia, it has to be said, is not everyone's cup of tea or indeed plate of cod. And that would be because it isn't anything like cod. It is, of course, like squid. Indeed many will insist that it is squid. The Brits for example. Show them a photo of a cuttlefish and they'll say "calamari", which is not correct but which may not be completely inaccurate either, if that doesn't sound all rather Mallorquín. It all has to do with definitions, and the cuttlefish, which is not a fish in any event but a mollusc, falls into the same overall family as the squid. But to call a cuttlefish a calamari would be to risk that a cuttlefish might be riled enough to spray ink all over you. It is not calamari, as we know it. It is the thing that, in its dead and dried form, budgies peck at. So there. (Incidentally, on youtube, if you google, you can see a video of an "angry cuttlefish", which isn't particularly angry; in fact I don't think it's at all angry, but it's a quite good short vid.)
Anyway, you should know that on April 4 and 5, the boat and cuttlefish fairs will be taking place in Alcúdia, i.e. in Port d'Alcúdia, because this is an event of the "moll" people, not of the non-moll, aka the poble, further known as the "pueblo" people. And a jolly good event it always is, too. I shall doubtless be adding to the sum of knowledge regarding this whole shindig over the next few days, but I'm wondering if I should keep my powder dry, or my dead cuttlefish dry, as there is more fax 'n' info to be imparted (possibly) on Monday when members of the press, such of course as myself, are brought before the great and good of the town hall. But I will let you know about that.
* A point on pronunciation. "Moll" is like "moy", as in Chris Moyles, but without the "les" part. The "moll people", therefore, sounds a bit KLF-ish, which was the answer to yesterday's quiz (see below). Justified Ancients of Moy-Moy and all that.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The KLF (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXEOESuiYcA). Today's title - not quite "molls", but this was by The Moles, who were a mystery band from the '60s, but who were they really?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
This year sees the staging of the fourth annual joint nautical and cuttlefish fair. It was the fishermen of the port who helped to create the event, the nautical element of the October fair being spun out and joined with the sepia (or at least the cooking thereof) which, in March and April, is at its most abundant. The fishermen's calendar is determined by what proliferates in the local waters, and it was the sepia that won the rights to its own gig, together with the re-located boats.
Sepia, it has to be said, is not everyone's cup of tea or indeed plate of cod. And that would be because it isn't anything like cod. It is, of course, like squid. Indeed many will insist that it is squid. The Brits for example. Show them a photo of a cuttlefish and they'll say "calamari", which is not correct but which may not be completely inaccurate either, if that doesn't sound all rather Mallorquín. It all has to do with definitions, and the cuttlefish, which is not a fish in any event but a mollusc, falls into the same overall family as the squid. But to call a cuttlefish a calamari would be to risk that a cuttlefish might be riled enough to spray ink all over you. It is not calamari, as we know it. It is the thing that, in its dead and dried form, budgies peck at. So there. (Incidentally, on youtube, if you google, you can see a video of an "angry cuttlefish", which isn't particularly angry; in fact I don't think it's at all angry, but it's a quite good short vid.)
Anyway, you should know that on April 4 and 5, the boat and cuttlefish fairs will be taking place in Alcúdia, i.e. in Port d'Alcúdia, because this is an event of the "moll" people, not of the non-moll, aka the poble, further known as the "pueblo" people. And a jolly good event it always is, too. I shall doubtless be adding to the sum of knowledge regarding this whole shindig over the next few days, but I'm wondering if I should keep my powder dry, or my dead cuttlefish dry, as there is more fax 'n' info to be imparted (possibly) on Monday when members of the press, such of course as myself, are brought before the great and good of the town hall. But I will let you know about that.
* A point on pronunciation. "Moll" is like "moy", as in Chris Moyles, but without the "les" part. The "moll people", therefore, sounds a bit KLF-ish, which was the answer to yesterday's quiz (see below). Justified Ancients of Moy-Moy and all that.
QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The KLF (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXEOESuiYcA). Today's title - not quite "molls", but this was by The Moles, who were a mystery band from the '60s, but who were they really?
(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)
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