Meals On Wheels: Food trucks

The chuckwagon was supposedly invented by one Charles Goodnight in Texas in 1866. His was a meal supply vehicle for cowboys herding cattle across the vast expanses of the Wild West. The food served up by the wagon trail "cookie" was rudimentary and needed to be easy to preserve. The means of cooking was likewise basic: water and kindling were used to heat food.

One hundred and fifty years after Goodnight first modified a Studebaker army-surplus wagon, the descendant of the chuckwagon has become a mobile gastronomic experience. This development was also of American origin and a very much more recent one. Economic crisis, so it is said, caused there to be a surplus of out-of-work chefs, while mobile vehicles supplying food in particular to construction sites themselves became surplus to requirements. Throw in a healthy spoonful of hip street culture, and the food truck of the new age was born.

There have of course been all sorts of mobile food vehicles in different countries and over many decades. The British roadside caff, for instance, was often a semi-permanent caravan, modified to provide hamburgers, bacon sandwiches and mugs of brackish tea. There was rarely anything particularly sophisticated about the forerunners of the contemporary food truck, with one very notable exception: the mobile catering crews for filming locations. Highly-paid actors and directors would settle for nothing less than transportable à la carte.

The food truck phenomenon, as it has become, was only first being truly observable (in the USA) some seven or eight years ago. Being American, it drew on the folklore of the truck in the country's culture, one dating back to the wagon trails and then to the enormous transport trucks traversing the nation. Along the way, this folklore acquired all amount of outlandish qualities. The food truck is an amalgam of this folklore brought up to date to create a gastronomic experience, one being exported worldwide. Hence, there is no translation. In Spain, in Mallorca, a food truck is a food truck.

On 16 May last year, the grounds of Palma's Es Baluard Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art were the setting for an event called Van Big, the first street food festival "made in Mallorca", and these English words were used to describe it, thus reinforcing the imported culture. In Spanish, though, it was explained that this was a "nomadic, gypsy" festival and one of the street - creative gastronomy on wheels. The food truck had truly arrived in Mallorca. 

There were seven trucks in all, their cuisine ranging from hamburgers to organic veg, to homemade Mallorcan and black pork and vegetarian tapas, to cakes and to ice-creams. The names of the trucks explained much: Manduka Street Food, La Pickup, El Perrito Callejero.

The Es Baluard event was a great success. And suddenly, therefore, the food trucks were popping up elsewhere. In Inca last November, for instance, the Van Big gastronomic experience took over the courtyard of the one-time General Luque Guardia Civil barracks. In addition to the "implosion" of this gastronomy, there were the trappings of a fiesta within a fiesta (or fair in the case of Inca's Dijous Bo). Music, artistic performances and what was described as "urban sketching", a sort of controlled exercise in graffiti art.

So we come to this weekend and to the Streetfood Festival Mallorca, the First Street Food Primavera in Puerto Alcudia. It started on Friday afternoon and goes on today. Trucks from Es Baluard are there, as are Kitchen on Fire and Toni's Food Truck. Music, cocktails, children's entertainment, charity events: a fiesta in its own right.

And creating a fiesta, with full town hall or other institutional support and permission, is how, pretty much, food trucks have to operate. This is Mallorca, this is Spain. Anyone fancying just taking a truck out with some food on it and parking in any old street will run up against the labyrinth of regulations for this or that. This is not the land of the truck, as might be the case in the US. Nevertheless, the food truck phenomenon is growing, so much so that there are businesses from which ready-converted trucks can be bought or hired.

At heart though, the food trucks are part of what isn't the erroneously styled "implosion" of gastronomy, as it was described at Es Baluard and in Inca, but of the explosion of Mallorca's gastronomy. Cuisine and its promotion is everywhere, and the chances are it will be coming to you, wherever you are in Mallorca. Coming to you on wheels.

* Photo of a couple of the food trucks which were at Puerto Alcudia's recent sepia fair.

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.

Jamie Oliver Would Be Pleased

It isn't known what Poppy Honey Rosie, Daisy Boo Pamela, Petal Blossom Rainbow and Buddy Bear Maurice think about prawns, but their father is a great admirer of them, especially if they are available in the port of Sóller. If you are a town hall on the north-western coast of Mallorca looking for a celebrity seal of approval for the fruits of the local sea, it doesn't get much better than if this celebrity happens to also be a celebrity chef. Yes, Jamie Oliver has four children with those names and he also rates the Sóller prawns as being among the best he has ever had, and he said so last July. But for all his appeal, Jamie has not been co-opted into prawny promotion. It is not for Sóller to make its prawn as "pukka" as a pie.

Sóller has a thing about prawns and has had for at least some two thousand years; the Romans were particularly partial to them, and they come in two principal varieties - red and white. Coming to the present day, "Aristeus antennatus" is known - no, famed - across Mallorca, but it is more commonly known and famed as the "gamba de Sóller". As a consequence of this fame, the residents of the island will have been hotfooting it towards the Tramuntana yesterday and will continue to do so today, thereby swelling revenue coffers by paying their tunnel tolls in pursuit of the prized prawn of Sóller.

In keeping with many other towns on the island which have cottoned on to the potential offered by gastronomy events and fairs, Sóller is now in on the act. The curiosity is perhaps that it has taken them so long to do so. The first ever Sóller prawn fair is taking place over this weekend, and ten leading chefs (not including Jamie Oliver) are preparing their prawn master dishes in the marquee at the Sóller municipal market.

One could say that it has taken as long as Roman times for there to be a fair, but in much more recent times it would appear that, regardless of its deliciousness, the prawn was not the target of co-ordinated fishing effort. Hence, its presence on restaurant tables was once as haphazard as the fishing. It wasn't until 1949 that prawn fishing was properly and officially organised in the Balearics as a whole. Since then the prawn catch has fluctuated, a peak having been reached at the turn of the 1990s when some 350 tonnes per annum were being netted. The number of fishing boats dedicated to the catch has been systematically reduced along with the size of the catch, a factor that contributes to the price of prawns. Depending on the size of the actual prawn, it can be anything from 25 or so euros per kilo to over 80 euros.

Price alone might indicate the quality of the prawn, but there has to be more. Why is it that Jamie Oliver - to name one of innumerable others - can go into a rapture about it? What, if anything, is unique about the Sóller prawn? The simple answer is that it isn't unique. It is the same species. "Aristeus antennatus" is hauled from many a boat on to many a pier in many a Mediterranean port. The answer, therefore, is not so simple.

There are two principal areas for prawn fishing around Mallorca. One is the north-west coast around Sóller, the other is around the island of Cabrera off the south coast. Studies of the prawn populations in these two areas have established that while that of Cabrera is stable throughout the year, the population to be found off the Tramuntana coast isn't. There is a discernible shift in prawn-fishing emphasis in later summer and so a concentration on the north-western sea, and this is because of an abundance of female adult prawns as well as young prawns. This abundance is apparently the result of water conditions and of nutrients. The currents off the north-west are such that they favour adult females in summer and the young in autumn and also winter. The water conditions also influence the type of sediment and the food chain.

The studies are, at present, far from complete. There is an understanding regarding the movement of prawns but it hasn't fully extended to factors such as what prawns eat (pretty much anything, including mud and sometimes themselves), which probably holds the clue as to why the Sóller prawns are as tasty as they are.

So the secret as to the success of the Sóller prawn remains a bit of a mystery for now. Not that those tucking into a lasagna de gambas de Sóller will be concerning themselves overly much with marine-life food chains and hydrography.

Forty Years' Wait: Can Picafort

Of the northern resorts, Can Picafort can sometimes be overlooked because of the attention paid to its wealthier neighbour along the bay in Alcúdia or to that of the resort in the next bay of Pollensa. In one sense, this lesser attention has been justified. The Can Picafort marina does not match the grandeur of the Alcúdiamar or the splendour of Puerto Pollensa's yacht club. But things are changing in Can Picafort, and one of the more obvious changes is the presence of the new Club Náutico.

The story of the club is one that dates back many years. It was in fact founded in 1949 when a group of summer vacationers established the "Club Nàutic de Can Picafort". In the 1970s, the founding members of the club came up with a project for the development of the marina, one that was meant to have come to fruition the following decade. What the members hadn't bargained on was that funding problems led them to lose control over the project, of the marina and so of the possible development of the clubhouse.

The financial problems arose in 1972, leading to years of degradation of the marina. In 1985, work having been paralysed for all that time, the club's board sought the financial help of the tourism sector in the resort. A company, Puerto Deportivo de Can Picafort S.A. was formed, but there then followed more than two decades of legal dispute and further financial problems. These were such that the club was brought to the point of bankruptcy. It had a contract with the company, which comprised tourist businesses and hoteliers locally, to perform work on the marina's development. The lack of work that was done finally led the club, which held the concession for the marina all this time, to go to court, claiming breach of contract. Having been the concession holder, however, it was the club which was liable for costs and for fees for the marina's use, and not the contractor. It was these liabilities which nearly caused the bankruptcy.

In 2008, a court in Inca considered the case and a year later issued a ruling in favour of the club and against the contractor. The court ruled that the contractor should pay the mooring fees that the club had been paying. There were appeals - to the provincial court in Palma and then to the Balearics High Court. It ratified the decision of the Inca court. At the start of 2011, the contractor was instructed to vacate the port area completely. It was only then that serious work to improve the marina and to build the yacht club could begin.

Even then it wasn't all plain sailing, so to speak. Santa Margalida town hall opposed the building of the clubhouse, arguing that such a development was expressly forbidden under local planning regulations from way back in 1986. However, the Ports Authority gave permission, and its decisions countermand those of town halls.

Eventually, 41 years after the financial problems first arose, the Club Náutico building came into existence.

The tortuous and tangled story of the club acts as a prologue for what is taking place this weekend. Can Picafort now has its club and it wants to make itself better known as nautical sports destination, just in the same way as Puerto Alcúdia - especially Puerto Alcúdia - has over the past few years. Any disagreement that there was between the town hall and the club has been set to one side. They are both engaged in promoting this weekend's first Nautical Sports Fair and Gastronomy (calamari) Fair.

The fair is, therefore, a celebration of the hoped-for future of Can Picafort as a nautical sports resort and of that complicated past. Forty odd years is a long time to wait.

Programme in English: http://thehotguide.blogspot.com.es/2014/05/can-picafort-nautical-sports-and.html

MALLORCA TODAY - Boat parade at Alcúdia's sepia fair

The boat show that has been a part of the sepia (cuttlefish) gastronomy fair in Puerto Alcúdia since the fair's inception is to be boosted this year by there being a a "boat parade". With the boat show in Palma having been called off, Alcúdia is anticipating greater participation by the nautical industry this year. The fair takes place over the weekend of 21 and 22 April, a week before the Palma boat show should have started.

See more: Diario de Mallorca

The World's Most Popular Breakfast

The bacon must be lean; crispy but certainly not incinerated. The egg yolk should be runny but white sealed and without pools of what comes from a docker's nose. The tomato should, on no account, be from a tin and therefore not be a tomato. The sausage should, like the bacon, be reasonably well done and not be pink inside. The beans' sauce should not have acquired a glutenous state.

I am, you might realise, somewhat fastidious when it comes to the full English. I don't mind confessing both that I demand high standards and that I actually eat full Englishes. They are a guilty pleasure. Firstly, because it is claimed that they aren't necessarily good for you (I'd dispute this). Secondly, because consuming the full English is being oh so British. I should eschew the bacon 'n' eggs in favour of going-native breakfasting, which means the ensaïmada. Sorry, but if I'm going to have any lard, I want it with sausage and not in the form of a twirly thing with a sugar coating. The ensaïmada is rubbish. Over sweet, over hyped and over here.

It is a short pastry step from the execrable ensaïmada to the puffed-up contortion of the croissant. The two are dough to the pretentious fellow travellers of anything but the full English. And neither is any good.

The croissant is not originally French, but French it has become. Because it is French, as with anything else that can be noshed or imbibed that has a French label, the French would claim it to be superior to anything from anywhere else. Such culinary jingoism makes it the more surprising, therefore, that the French themselves have placed the full anglais in the number-one position on the breakfast chart.

A poll by Hotels.com has revealed that 19% of French people rate the full English as being number one. The survey of 2,400 travellers from more than 20 countries in all finds that the F.E. is the most popular first meal of the day.

The breakfasting habits of different nationalities can be hard to comprehend. The Dutch are arguably the maddest of all. Whatever made them think that putting little bits of chocolate onto bread and butter was a good thing? Probably the same thought process that has led them to eating raw herrings. They simply have no idea. Yet the Dutch, giants that they are, should thoroughly enjoy getting stuck into a full English. As should the Germans and the Scandinavians, and most obviously the Danes who, rather than eating Danish bacon, export most of it to the UK.

The discovery that the full English is in fact the world's number one breakfast should come as no surprise, as it quite obviously is the best, and should cause Bar Brits across Mallorca to stop and think for a moment.

The much-spoken-of gastronomy of Mallorca is naturally enough Mallorcan, but some of it, the ensaïmada clearly, is lousy. Both the lousy and the not lousy gets itself a fair amount of the spotlight, but what of the gastronomy that isn't Mallorcan?

One of the most bizarre reasons I have heard as to why a restaurant should not advertise was one offered by an Italian restaurant. People don't come to Mallorca to eat Italian food was the argument. If this is so, then it begs a pretty fundamental question as to why the restaurant exists.

The argument was rubbish, because "Italian" has its own power to promote and to attract. So why not, therefore, "British" or "English"? Because of the association with Bar Brit and consequently with tattoos, bellies, white-turning-pink skin and Sky, this gastronomy is ignored. Yet, it can boast the best breakfast in the world, one that can come in different varieties. It could be, for instance, the grand full English, that which might be served at Simpson's-in-the-Strand (nearly twenty quid for the real thing or "the ten deadly sins" to include also kidneys and bubble and squeak). It could come with accompanying Guinness - in a bottle and not out of some peculiar can with a syrup. It could be promoted as the "world's most popular breakfast".

Bar Brits could co-operate in pushing a gastronomy fair of their own, directed at the nationalities who come to Mallorca (and who also live here) and who are unaware of the great British fry-up. They could educate as to quite why a bean has been covered in a tomatoey sauce; advance the cause of the black pudding which isn't, after all, that far removed from local sausages about which a song and dance is made.

The world's most popular breakfast. Now get frying.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Playground Of The Rich? Mallorca's luxury tourism

The rich get richer and the tourism of the rich offers ever greater riches. Airtours, TUI's luxury tourism division, will be increasing the number of wealthy German tourists that it brings to Mallorca by 25% this year. As with the luxury property market - Engel & Völkers having recently issued positive forecasts for its German sales in the 4 to 8 million bracket - so luxury tourism refuses to succumb to the savaging of economic crisis.

Mallorca, despite competition from the likes of Sardinia, continues to hold an appeal to wealthy tourists, Germans in particular. The island is also benefiting from an increase in the niche gay luxury tourism market. The company Mallorca Luxury Gay has added a further element to its offer to gay tourists, that of high-quality dental treatment, in a bid to increase its market on the island for a tourism group that typically spends more significant amounts than the "straight" market.

Positive though this may seem, the luxury market, assuming one can arrive at an exact definition as to what it means, remains small. In Spain as a whole, according to a report in 2008, the luxury tourist, said to spend some 450 euros a day, was catered for by five-star accommodation that amounted to a mere 6% of all hotels. The spend equated to just over 7% of total tourism outlay.

One of the difficulties with increasing this market lies with the costs of creating the right type of hotel and of maintaining it. The prices that can be charged, high though they may be, do not necessarily result in high returns. The profitability of the luxury hotel, compared with other destinations, such as the Caribbean, is weighed down because it is simply that much more expensive to run it. This is exactly the same equation that dogs hotels' abilities to provide superior-quality all-inclusives such as those in Turkey where there are four individual categories of all-inclusive - from "classic" to "ultra class".

It is this price-quality-return conundrum which puts into some perspective the desire of the Mallorcan hotel federation to upgrade hotel stock. The luxury market may have deep pockets, but the market itself isn't so large that it can compensate for the investment needed to attract it. And there is a further issue, one that has to do with where these hotels are located.

To take an example, in Playa de Muro there are 33 hotels, three of which are five star and several more of which are excellent four star. An up-market image of hotels is not, despite a fine beach, matched by what else the resort has to offer, namely parts of it in a state of virtual abandonment and, with the greatest of respect, a lack of genuinely quality restaurants. Rather, you have an almost uniform offer of the standard "grill" and pizzeria.

The restaurants are caught in a dilemma. They may wish to invest, may wish to change their cuisine, but to what end? They have come to realise full well that the image of all-inclusive being exclusively for the economy-class tourist is something of a myth. It only partially applies in Playa de Muro, and in a wider context it is applying less and less; demand for all-inclusive within the higher, 4-star end of the market has increased and is likely to go on increasing if what exists outside hotels is unable to match this market's more sophisticated tastes, assuming that the hotels can actually deliver the required service. But do the restaurants adapt to try and capture this market when they fear that such effort will be undermined by the all-inclusive offer?

What is on offer in restaurants is, though, an important ingredient when it comes to the luxury market. All the attention that is paid to some of the "alternative" tourism offers, notably gastronomy and golf, is understandable if this market is to grow significantly. Both these are cited as important aspects of attracting the luxury market. In Playa de Muro, the obstacles to the building of the golf course on the Son Bosc finca are seen as detrimental to the expansion of the market.

Crucially, however, the question is whether this luxury market will grow significantly and whether the investment to make it grow will be matched by results. There is, and has long been, an element of wishful thinking, some of which is now being turned towards the nouveau riche of Russia and eastern Europe. Nevertheless, if TUI is increasing the number of its minted Germans, then there is cause for some gentle optimism.

The issue will be whether Mallorca has the quality of hotel and, as importantly, quality of resort to make anything like a quantum leap. And, as has been seen with Playa de Palma, the hoteliers, pressing for upgrades and the removal of bureaucratic hoops that would facilitate them, contradict themselves by insisting (not unreasonably) that the bread and butter remains the 3-star mass tourist.

And there is lurking perhaps an additional issue, a social one. Mention of Sardinia as a competitor to Mallorca in the luxury market is a reminder of what surfaced there back in 2008. Wealthy and celebrity tourists being greeted with barrages of wet sand and cries of "louts, go home" as their motorised dinghies came ashore.

Wealth is very welcome, but in times of deprivation, more of it, ostentatiously on show, does not guarantee a welcome.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Still Waters Run Deep: After the floods and alternative gastronomy

Après le déluge.

Big weather events bring with them big weather stories. Those of being flooded out, those of cars stalled, those of roads closed. And then there are those of the great floods of the past, those of weather's not normally like that at this time of the year, with which someone disagrees, referring to the great deluge of ... whenever it may have been, if at all.

Everywhere you went, there was some post-flood cleaning up in progress. Restaurant Jardín, for example. Dani staring somewhat forlornly at a wide green hose. The Siesta 2 swimming-pool having to be pumped out and re-filled as it had gone an unpleasant colour of Sant Marti mountain plus muddy water plus whatever else. And everywhere you went, you might inadvertently come across the aftermath of the great rains - roads in the centre of Puerto Alcúdia under significant amounts of water, and the fire engines pumping away for all their worth, which makes you wonder how much a fire engine is worth and whether this worth can really be calculated in terms of water-pumping capability. And then ... big mistake, taking the turning towards the Condes, then an even bigger one to take the turning past the Viva Tropic. Still waters running deeper. Truly, truly I am sorry to the lady who I splashed. I did slow, I did brake (which is not really advisable), but I couldn't help it. Later, someone tells me that Spanish driving instruction includes advice to drive at as high a speed as possible through floods. This explains much. Splash, drench, curse.

The great weather event of 3 May will now pass into history, but for the moment it is another body blow, made no better by news of Ireland under a cloud.

But then to the local Eroski where the spirits rise a little. Not because of special offers on beer or the like, but because of the music. You can never be sure what you'll get over the PA in the supermarket. New Order "Regret". It makes shopping for aluminium foil positively uplifting, and you wonder ... what if I were to turn into the next aisle and there would be Hooky and Barney playing live. They aren't, but it seemed like a nice idea at the time. Which made me think ... Things you would never expect to find in your local Eroski. New Order would be one, but decent bacon might be another. Which made me think further.

A recent correspondent via the Alcudia forum was asking about the great English breakfast, so I set him a challenge - to unearth the best, in his opinion. Don't, please, for one moment think I'm about to do this as we all know where, even with the best intentions, identifying best of bars etc. can lead. But a humble visitor is a different matter, methinks, while the role of the full English is, in my view, sadly overlooked when it comes to all this carry-on about Mallorcan gastronomy. It may not be Mallorcan, but it is part of the Mallorcan scene. So from this has been spawned a further idea for this newspaper thing. The alternative gastronomy page. And I have found my "expert" alter egos. Their names are Pam and Olly (as in Pa amb Oli - ho, ho). They know who they are, as I told them yesterday morning. Bet you can't wait.

(I should, I feel, thank Seamus for providing the initial inspiration for Pam and Olly.)


I don't know, but I reckon this can qualify among our summer/holiday songs. The Four Tops, "Still Waters Run Deep":




Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Welcome To The Pleasuredome

There is currently a "mostra" of Mallorcan cuisine going on. Mostra does not translate easily. Or rather it does, in that it means a "show", but that is not really correct. Better would be something like event. So, a Mallorcan cuisine event. It goes on around the island and is divided into three "routes", the second of which covers the north of the island next week. What it entails, and the event is now 25 years old, is that restaurants in or along the routes serve up some special menus to a maximum price of 12 euros. Good idea, you would think, and as it has been going for so long, you would believe that it would be pencilled into the calendars of restaurants and that it would be a major statement of Mallorcan gastronomy, of which one hears so much as a source of "new" tourism. You might think all this, but I'm not sure that you would be right.

Why, for example, is only one restaurant in the whole of Pollensa taking part? The list of restaurants in the north is fairly impressive, in terms of the names of the restaurants, but there are not that many. Most of them, seven, are across Alcúdia - from Meson Los Patos by Muro to the Mirador in La Victoria. This still doesn't answer why only one in Pollensa - Iru. I asked someone (Mallorcan) who is involved with various establishments and who has his base in the old town of Pollensa. The answer was straightforward. There is just too much of this. By that he meant that there is too much that restaurants are asked to take part in, to promote, to produce special this and special that, and at special prices. Twenty-five years ago it probably all seemed pretty simple. But not now.

You might argue, with some justification, that the restaurants should be only too willing to support anything that brings in more business. The point is, however, that there is a limit to what they can be prepared to support and to pay out for. And there is so much - of all types of promotion. If one genuinely believed that this mostra would drum up regular new business, then it would probably be worth it. But would it? I rather fancy that most diners are locals and locals who take the opportunity for having a meal at the sort of price you would pay for a menu of the day. What about tourists and the gastronomy tourists most obviously? Well, where are they?

This all comes back to the alternative tourism, to the niche markets. A letter to "The Bulletin" yesterday made some similar points to those that I made two days ago. I am heartened that someone else thinks along the same sort of lines. A mostra of Mallorcan cuisine should be, were Mallorcan gastronomy such a really big deal, a major tourism event, but it isn't. One needs to ask why not.


Sharp observers of this blog will have noticed that I use certain words quite a lot - like well, really, actually. Lazy in a sense, but I tend to write like I speak. In so doing, I trust that it may come across as sort of chummy. This is not my point though. What is, is that those three words all (like all) include a double-l. You may know that the Spanish are fairly keen on double-l's, like the Welsh. This l-love-in can be but one explanation for the regularity with which double-l appears erroneously. Famously, Playa de Muro has its own double-l that greets visitors, as in "wellcome". There is only one welcome with two l's as far as I am aware, and that is, or was, the Wellcome Foundation prior to its being swallowed (with two l's) up by Glaxo. Yet, the Spanish are keen to continue the tradition of this once fine example of an alternative style of British company structure (albeit that the Wellcome was American). Place mats, those paper ones you get. Wellcome, they say. Often. As at the excellent (two l's) Celler (also an l-duo) El Moli in Pollensa (double-l). Everywhere you go. The company gave the world the anti-herpal drug Zovirax, and it also gave the Spanish world a greeting. Wellcome to Mallorca - or make that Majorca, "Paradis-Insel" as the Germans would insist: the Pleasuredome, if only the tourism authorities could get the message right.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Brilliant. Gene Pitney, Tulsa. And he saw a "welcoming (or maybe wellcoming) light" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLRRdE6jUdY). Today's title - relax, don't do it.

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