You Are What You Grow: Mallorca's fairs

They haven't been celebrating the almond for long in Santa Margalida. Today is only the fourth of the town's almond fairs, an appendage to celebrations for Sant Mateu, themselves an add-on to the La Beata fiestas, which only ended a fortnight ago. Sant Mateu, aka Matthew, is something of a saintly afterthought, picking his way through the shattered pitchers of the Mallorcan home-grown saintliness of La Beata in staking a claim to be remembered.

Almonds are not unique to Santa Margalida. Indeed it is probably fair to say that they are more associated with land to the south, such as in and around Marratxi and Calvia. Where the latter is concerned, the almond was given an honourable mention during the opening address for the fiestas in Santa Ponsa. As part of the town's gastronomy, its role in pastries was applauded, while other produce from Calvia was also referred to - aubergines, for example.

Nevertheless, the almond has long featured in the rural economy of Santa Margalida, and the fair is indicative of its importance to this economy, while its introduction in 2012 was more than simply the creation of another event in the town's social calendar. It was also a means of increasing awareness of threats to the local almond business that were coming from drought and fungus. The fair was a way of reminding relevant authorities that the almond is a precious crop for Mallorca and that it required rather more attention than it had been getting, with so much more attention having been given to an expansion of olive production at the expense of the almond.

There will, inevitably, be a part of the fair dedicated to almond-based gastronomy. Most typically associated with pastries and cakes and also of course ice-cream - Mallorca's indigenous ice-cream manufacture arose more than two centuries ago because of the almond - it also finds its way into other types of cuisine.

The versatility of Mallorca's crops has become increasingly evident because of the number of fairs that are devoted to agricultural production in individual towns and villages and so also to the type of dish that comes from these crops. The produce of the land has become the theme for many a fair. So much so that a town or village is defined by what it grows or at least for what it is principally noted for growing. Hence, Sa Pobla is the town of the potato people; Soller is orange town and orange folk; Binissalem is "grapesville". There are others: Caimari is olives and especially olive oil, Porreres is apricots, Lloret is figs, Vilafranca melons, Muro pumpkins.

But this highlighting of specific crops obscures the fact that there are, of course, many others. In Muro, as an example, the pumpkin fair is a bit of a contrivance. Yes, there are pumpkins grown but they are not the principal crop or anything like it. Muro shares with Sa Pobla an earth for vegetable production that gives rise to, among others, the cabbage and the artichoke. So valuable is local artichoke farming that the Guardia has had in the past to be pressed into service and undertake artichoke watch: thieves were nicking artichokes in the dead of night.

Certain towns, however, are defined by more than one main crop. Sa Pobla is one the best examples. While it is Potato Central in Mallorca, it is also Rice Central. They've dabbled with theming events along rice lines in Sa Pobla, always aware though of the sensitivities of its potato identity, the potato having begun to assume importance for the local economy roughly a hundred years before rice production in Albufera started in any meaningful fashion. Care needs to be exercised when the populace identifies so much with one product of the land, but nevertheless the town hall is to embark on a rice gastronomy route - "arròs pobler" - as a means of attracting more visitors to the town.

So, the fruit and veg-themed fairs reveal town and village folk who are what they grow, but among all these various crops there is one that seems to be missing and it is one right at the centre of traditional, peasant cooking. There is, as far as I am aware, no cabbage fair. Might the cabbage offer, therefore, a niche fair theme for town halls on the lookout for giving a boost to their fair calendar? Or maybe it's the lot of the humble cabbage that it doesn't lend itself to a diversity of gastronomy that other crops do. In which case, what about the equally humble carrot? Any takers? The carrot does, after all, share something in common with Santa Margalida and its almond. Cake.

Almonds And Underwear: Saint Matthew

They were getting their kit off in Bunyola yesterday. Not all of it. Decorum demands that underwear remains, and the invention of a modern tradition turns such decorum into an event - "correguda en ropa interior", the run in underwear, though it might be noted that correguda does also mean something else. It is probably best that I don't mention what. It was the tenth staging of the bra, panties and pants party, it having been started by a group of the town's "jóvenes" in 2005. (Well, you wouldn't have expected the town's "ancianos" to have initiated such an event.)

Saint Matthew, he of Apostle fame, was not noted for parading around in his boxers or revealing Calvin Kleins. It is doubtful that he would have approved of the Bunyola brassiere bout, but modernity decrees that antique apostles are stripped down and varnished with baby oil. In Bunyola, at any rate. It's the Sant Mateu fiestas, but knickers to old Matthew and all hail the new saint - a hip dude Matt or Matty in Modus Vivendi.

Matthew was many things in terms of his saintly patronage, but the list of his sponsorship did not stretch to underwear or indeed to almonds. In Santa Margalida, where barely a week seems to pass without some fiesta or other, they're at it again, and this time they've run Saint Matthew up the fiestas' flagpole and given him a delicious bag of sugar-coated almonds to munch on.

This is the almond harvesting season, and Santa Margalida has, since 2012, combined a fiesta which had been paid little attention to in the town - Matthew's - with the almond and come up with its "mostra de l'ametla", a grand almond show. It is a town which has a strong interest in the success or not of the almond harvest, as was highlighted in 2012 when there were genuine concerns about the health of the local almond trees. These were anxieties caused by the presence of a fungus that had been attacking the trees and which first really became evident on the island in 2008. It is a disease which has principally affected trees in the Llevant region, especially around Sant Llorenç. Decaying trees in Santa Margalida were more the victim of drought rather than fungus, but the concerns raised two years ago led to a greater awareness of the need to pay trees, especially older ones, rather more TLC than had been the case.

The almond tree has long been a feature of the Mallorcan landscape, and it is of course especially so when it is in blossom in February, but the almond only really became an agricultural force in the nineteenth century when almonds as a crop gained popularity once farming land was reorganised into smaller plots. In 1820, there was negligible almond production, but forty years later almost 6,000 hectares were devoted to its cultivation. Mallorca's almond production contributed to Spain being the world leader, a status that was lost in the late 1970s when the US, and in particular California, overtook Spain as the dominant global producer of almonds. Competition and the enduring impact of old provisions under the Common Agricultural Policy wreaked havoc with Mallorca's almonds as much as any disease. In a period of only six years from 2005, agricultural land devoted to almond production was slashed by over a half.

Great efforts have been made to at least stabilise the situation, and with some success. There has been very little loss of further cultivated land, but the disease has not made stabilisation any easier, especially when carobs, as an alternative crop, have been unaffected. The Santa Margalida fair has to be seen, therefore, within the context of these various threats to the almond and to food-manufacture traditions that it has brought. And one of the most obvious traditions is that of ice-cream. At the fair today there is a workshop devoted to the making of almond ice-cream.

It's hard to place an exact date on when ice-cream manufacture started in Mallorca, but in the eighteenth century it was being made for the Can Joan de s'Aigo chocolate and ice-cream parlour in Palma. The original Sr. de s'Aigo, so the story goes, used to get ice and snow from the Tramuntana mountains and mix it with almond milk. Nowadays, almond ice-cream is a mainstay of the ice-cream freezers of the island's supermarkets.

Yesterday evening in Santa Margalida there was a procession of lanterns for Saint Matthew. They were made from melons and pumpkins and not from almonds - it would be pretty tricky to do so, just as it would be tricky to make underwear from almonds. Saint Matthew has provided the pretext for fiesta events that have nothing whatsoever to do with him, but forget Matthew and concentrate on the almonds. All day today in Santa Margalida there will be special almond dishes as part of its "Picametla" gastronomy event.

Nuts In September: Santa Margalida

The feast day of Saint Matthew the Apostle is 21 September. In Santa Margalida, they started celebrating Sant Mateu in a particular way last year. Matt is the patron saint for a number of professions: accountants, bankers, tax collectors. With this little lot, why would anyone want to celebrate his day? Indeed, how did he ever manage to get the gig as an apostle and acquire sainthood? Something must have gone very badly wrong among Christ's recruitment people when they appointed him. He had himself been a tax collector. What were they thinking of?

Ok, so Matt did have a conversion and saw the errors of his ways, but he has been unfortunate enough to have been lumbered with all this patronage for the past couple of thousand years. Why couldn't he have had something altogether more pleasant to watch over? Like almonds. As far as I am aware, Saint Matt does not have and never has had anything to do with almonds. For all I know, he may never have eaten one or sampled the delights of the Battenberg cake or the Bakewell tart. But this hasn't stopped Santa Margalida using almonds as the excuse for putting on a few days celebration in his honour. Or maybe it's the other way round. Either way, from the 19th to the 28th of September there is to be the second almond "show" (for Sant Mateu) in the town and next Saturday (the big Matt day) and Sunday there will be a "picametla", which involves local bars and restaurants serving snacks and meals made with almonds. "Ametla" means almond.

Almonds are important to the economy of Santa Margalida, as they are important to Mallorca's agricultural economy as a whole. But this traditional fruit crop is under threat. In the five years to the end of 2011, the total amount of land that had been devoted to almond growing had fallen by a quarter. The almond was a victim of a number of factors - foreign competition and the Common Agricultural Policy being of greatest importance.

Olive production benefited as a result of CAP subsidies and minimum prices. Though subsidies are no longer as they were, olive growing has continued to increase, pushing aside more traditional crops, such as almonds. In addition, a subsidy known as coupled payment suppression meant a 13% reduction on margins for Spanish nut farmers.

Santa Margalida's celebration of the almond is, therefore, more than just a typical fair devoted to local produce, as with, for instance, Sa Pobla's potato fair. It is about a fruit which, while not endangered with extinction, is being lessened in its traditional importance.

If the growing of almonds is cut back further, it might be that some traditional local food is affected. It is the almond which went into the making of the original Mallorcan ice-cream (almond milk at any rate) along with ice gathered from the mountains. Almond goes into "turrón", the nougaty thing which is especially popular at Christmas, and into "gató", the local sponge cake.

There probably wouldn't be any effect on this in that substitutes would be used. That, though, would be sacrilege, especially if the Californian imported almond were to be used instead. You can tell a Mallorcan almond from most others and certainly from a Californian one. Why? It doesn't taste as good.

Almonds and hazelnuts, these are Mallorca's main nuts. They shouldn't be lost. Go to Santa Margalida and support your local almond, therefore. And if you see some beardy bloke who says he isn't a tax collector but who might be snooping around the stalls selling almond produce, tell him he's a banker.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Santa Margalida celebrates the almond

The first almond show is being held this weekend in Santa Margalida. A film will be shown this evening about the almond and its cultivation locally and from 9am tomorrow there will be exhibitions and demonstrations of equipment associated with almond-growing and processing.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

MALLORCA TODAY - Protected geographical identification sought for almonds

Central government is to lobby the European Union to grant protected geographical identification status on the Mallorcan almond, which would give the nut the seal of quality approval that comes from such status, one that is already granted to Mallorcan ensaïmada and sobrasada.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

When Blossom Falls: Mallorca's almonds

February. In parts of Mallorca there is a familiar and pretty sight. Almond trees in blossom. The tourism they attract may not rival, say, the tulip fields of the Netherlands, but it does attract some. But for how much longer?

In the past five years, the amount of land devoted to almond cultivation has shrunk dramatically. A loss of 33,000 hectares has left the island with less than half the area for almond-growing that it had in 2005; 25,000 hectares remain.

The decline can be attributed not to crisis but to a change in productive agricultural land use. Where once were almond trees are now olive groves. The decline can be attributed also to factors of competition, consumption, markets and to the Common Agricultural Policy.

Almonds are only one example of a shift in agricultural production. One of the more dramatic has been the move to rice and away from potatoes. Less prone to the capriciousness of nature, rice has altered the pattern of agriculture in the traditional potato-growing area in and around Sa Pobla. Yet, the rice is primarily for domestic consumption, whereas the potatoes of Sa Pobla have long had a significant export market.

Export, however, has been highly influential in driving greater olive production. Indeed, most of Mallorca's olive oil goes overseas. Prized for its quality, it has found new and large markets; China, for instance. Almonds, though also highly valued by these new markets, don't represent the same opportunity, and this is in no small part due to the competition and the market dominance that comes from California.

In the late 1970s, the US overtook Spain as the leading producer of almonds, or rather California did. Some 80% of the world's supply of almonds now comes from California. In a manner similar to that of the Californian wine region of the Napa Valley and its inroads into French supremacy in the global wine market, so agricultural technology, way in advance of Spanish methods, secured a position of dominance for the Californian almond from which Spain and Mallorca have never really recovered.

International competition is not confined to American almonds. Imports of other types of nut have altered Mallorcan and Spanish consumption, eroding the demand for the mainstays of Mallorcan nut production, hazelnuts as well as almonds.

Though Spanish production of almonds in 2011/2012 is due to rise by around 11% on a five-year average, this increase is largely down to natural factors; the harvest will have benefited from generally benign conditions. But the vagaries of nature have, as with the potato, occasionally taken their toll. In 2009, Mallorca's almond production was poor by comparison with other parts of Spain, the result of too much rain and wind inhibiting pollination during the flowering season. And the almond faces another natural threat, in Mallorca and elsewhere: that of worries about the honeybee.

But over and above these different factors, successive reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have probably been most influential.

CAP regulations have been both positive and negative. They brought about a general improvement in the quality of olive oil, but they also, thanks to subsidies and guaranteed minimum prices above world-market prices, brought about a boom in olive-tree plantation. Though the subsidy has changed since the 1980s, the growing of olives has continued to increase, and this despite the adoption of more environmentally sensitive policies in a 2005 reform.

The effects of this reform haven't necessarily been that environmentally sensitive, notwithstanding CAP criteria that are meant to place environmental issues to the fore. Intensive olive plantations have taken over from what were more traditional crops and, in the process, have reduced biodiversity, and not just in Mallorca.

Allied to this has been a calculation in subsidy known as the coupled payment suppression and its impact on nuts. The outcome of this has been a 13% reduction on margins for Spanish nut farmers and pretty much Spanish nut farmers alone.

Agriculture is only a tiny part of Mallorca's economy, just a bit over 1% of GDP, but it is being looked at anew for its potential growth. The appointment as environment and agriculture minister in the regional government of Gabriel Company, an independent from agriculture, highlights this renewed attention being given to agriculture. But which priorities are grabbing his attention?

While olive-oil production has clear economic advantages, the minister, in his combined role, will know that almonds, a faltering element in the agricultural mix, contribute also to the natural environment and landscape of Mallorca. And at the current rate of loss, by 2017 there will be no almond growing and no almond blossom.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Ice-Cream Man

The heat of a Mallorcan summer's afternoon. A refreshing beer perhaps? A can of chilled over-priced Coke from a beach-side supermarket? Or what about a lolly?

There can be little finer than some fruity ice with which to quench a thirst; the sweet taste of orange concentrate being sucked to the point where its colour disappears, leaving a spear of silvery frost. The lolly is a greatly underrated pleasure, inclined to be overlooked in favour of more exotic packaging to be picked over in a shop's freezer, the chill from which, on sweaty hands and forearms, is worth the price of what's to eventually be chosen: the Magnum; the one in a tub with a Venetian twirl and a suggestion of cherry; the variety of white chocolate coating, dark chocolate, chocolate with nuts. Ice cream.

The lolly is, suprisingly perhaps, a relatively recent innovation. It is little more than a hundred years old. It is a johnny-come-lately of the world of things on a stick. The ice cream has an altogether longer history, yet both share a common bond, that of ice. That it took a couple of hundred years for someone to add fruit juice to ice when cream and ice had been being combined since the early eighteenth century is a curiosity of uninventiveness. (In fact the first lolly didn't even involve fruit juice; it was made with soda water powder.)

The heritage of ice cream partly explains its dominance when it comes to the sunny-afternoon refreshment decision. The ice cream is firmly embedded in our collective consciousness. We have become instinctive ice-cream eaters. And the ice cream, because it has infinite versatility in a way that the lolly doesn't, is a marketing man's dream. We are attracted to its packaging, to its tubs of all colours, to its never-disappointing moreishness.

We grew up with lollies and ice cream, but the ice cream has stayed with us. The lolly, despite its greater thirst-quenching properties, is very much more infantile. Grown men are more likely to hide their lolly consumption than openly display it on the beaches or streets of Mallorca. The ice cream, on the other hand, holds no possible stigma. It is an accepted indulgence, a totally unguilty pleasure. One can be outed as an ice-cream eater without any thought of recrimination.

We all carry our ice-cream baggage with us, our own histories of ice cream. My own goes back to the ice-cream parlour in the village at the foot of the hill going up to the church. Fortuna's Ice Cream. The very name was parodical. Mr. Fortuna was parodical. He was an Italian before Italian stereotyping had been thought of. And he made ice cream.

The strangest thing about Mr. Fortuna was that he was an uncle of mine, despite there being not the slightest Italian connection between our family and anyone else's. He, Uncle Fortuna (we never actually knew his first name), was an uncle purely on account of the fact that every man back then was an uncle, just as every woman was an aunt. My childhood was full of confusion; I could never quite work out who I was actually related to.

To the Italians has fallen the honour of history in assigning to them responsibility for having invented certain foods and drink. Pizza, pasta, cappuccino, ice cream. Arguably, they didn't invent any of them, and a claim on ice cream is the most tenuous. The problem is, however, that the history of ice cream is not exact. The English have as much right to be named as the inventors of the modern ice cream as anyone else. But so also do the Mallorcans.

Where common ground appears to exist in the arcane world of ice-cream historians and researchers is with regard to when the modern ice-cream era started: the early 1700s. Though there is no evidence as to actual ice-cream manufacture in Mallorca at that time, the wherewithal for its manufacture was taking shape, and it was in the form of what still exists today, the Can Joan de s'Aigo chocolate parlour in Palma, and in particular something you wouldn't immediately associate with Mallorca - ice. Sr. de s'Aigo used to gather snow from the Tramuntana and store it, while a growth in almond plantations in the eighteenth century was what was to lead to the Can Joan ice cream. Almond milk met mountain snow, and the rest was ice-cream history.

Amidst the Häagen Dazs, the Ben and Jerry and the Magnum, almond ice cream assumes pride of place in the freezers of Mallorca. Along with other flavours, it is churned out by the "gelats" and "helados" of the island. Ice cream passes from generation to generation, the children's parties at fiesta time concluded with the handing out of free ice cream for all. And so the tradition is perpetuated. The ice-cream tradition. Pity the poor lolly.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.