Antònia Verger Jaume: "Opening a restaurant gave work to the women of the town"

MontuïriBorn in Montuïri in 1944, Antònia Verger Jaume Sopeta is one of those anonymous figures, but key in the local history of Pla de Mallorca and Montuïri in this case. Antònia Verger was for many years the lady of the Puig or of Cas Carboner, later. Without realizing it, she became a leader, a reference for other women who, in the last quarter of the last century, too often did not escape household chores. Verger began like this, not for nothing when we ask her about her studies, she explains that she took exams at the Institut de Felanitx, but, "the boys continued their studies and the girls, as was usual at that time, ended up doing household chores or as seamstresses". It was at the beginning of the seventies - and not without obstacles, as you will see in the interview - that she embarked, together with her husband, Biel Bennàssar Mayol Carboner, on the adventure of managing the bar and restaurant of Puig de Sant Miquel. In this conversation, Verger, reviews from the beginnings and the success of her cuisine to the tensions and the social transformation that, without knowing it, it represented for the women of the town.

How did your relationship with the Puig de Sant Miquel begin?

— This was about four or five years after I got married, it was in the early seventies. My husband, Biel, was a good friend of don Guillem Rigo Amengual and don Joan Miralles Riera Porrerenc - the priest and the mayor, respectively -. They had a connection with football and it was the years when the Torneig de la Llum was set up. I don't know for what reason they went to look for Biel to do some work as a tractor driver and fix a few things on the Puig de Sant Miquel.

— El Puig was and is a place much loved by the people of Montuïri, back then there was tia Xiva -Margalida Mayol Miralles, madò Xiva– who was the lady of El Puig. There in the large hall of what is now the restaurant, the people of the village used to go for celebrations. They ordered food from the village ovens and then, almost always, that little lady was in charge of cleaning it and maintaining order. I remember that every morning I went up with the little donkey and the cart towards El Puig. So when the hustle and bustle of the Torneig de la Llum started, with the mayor and the rector at the head, that space became the meeting and gathering place. And it was as if between Biel's stays for work up there and these goings-on we started to make some bread with oil, a little bit of embers...

And when does it finally become your calling, your profession?

— Joan Porrerenc showed up at our place one day. "I've come to talk to you." Biel wasn't there and he waited for him to arrive. "I want you to take Puig and open a bar up there." At first, I wasn't too keen on it! But as I was telling you, that year, 1972, we had already started going there seasonally, and in 1973 we set it up as a restaurant properly speaking. It all happened when one month we saw that we had made more money there than what Biel earned as a tractor driver and we took it seriously.

— Remember that there wasn't even a bar at the beginning. The mayor had bought or collected the kitchen of a bar in Petra that was closing and they took it to El Puig. We made a small kitchen, a laundry room... the chimney with those wooden vaults was already there. And that's how it all began. Every day it grew.

Those beginnings were not easy. You lived through moments of social and political controversy.

— Yes, at the beginning there was some controversy. There were people in the village who did not see it well that the management of the space was given away. They said it was being privatized, because the people of the village used to go there to take communion or spend the day freely. These were complex times of the Transition, where right-wing and left-wing ideologies mixed, and we didn't understand politics, we just wanted to do our job. They organized a demonstration for us on the day of Puig and sometimes people came to wander around up here as if they wanted to intimidate us... I must have photos around here. I'll look for them now.

— It also happened that the Vermelletes nuns, with land there from a bequest, closed off a large part of their land. Walls, barriers, and this did not help us either. For example, even today the townspeople do not know that the restaurant's kitchen does not belong to the Parish, it belongs to the Vermelletes and they wanted to build the wall right there. We had to fight, we and the authorities, to convince them to build the wall where it is now. Anyway, I don't know exactly how all that is. I think if we were to investigate, a large part of the pools that the Vermelletes have there would not be theirs.

Did you ever think of letting go?

— Yes, of course. As I tell you, we found ourselves there in the middle where many people from the town, linked to entities and associations, did not want us. And it was the mayor who asked us, 'please, do it for me' to keep the bar open. But, I must also say that that gave us a lot of publicity, we appeared in the newspapers and people found out that a bar had opened there.

Did you get to pass by?

— With that, a little yes. But the day we were really scared was when we had already opened Cas Carboner and we were running both restaurants. We were warned that a bomb had been planted in Puig. The person who called linked it to Macià Manera, who had recently been arrested. It was a day when we were full in both places. And you can imagine, Civil Guard up and down. From that day on, we were a few weeks or months in fear. In the end, it all turned out to be a scare or a false threat, but I had a very bad time those days. Luckily, people from the town encouraged us to persevere: "You have to stay here, for yourselves and for the whole town," they told us.

How did the fame of the kid from Puig de Sant Miquel originate?

— That the kid was the star dish was thanks to the people, word of mouth, not us. As you can imagine, it wasn't something we had planned from the start; it happened by chance. Joan Bauzà Capità told me one day that we had to prepare kid. At my house, we only made it for myself and at Christmas. I went to see my mother and told her: 'Now I have to make kid.' And she told me we used to eat it at Son Costa - an estate between Montuïri and Sant Joan - and we always made it in the oven - wood-fired -. I applied my mother's recipe, and it turned out so good, so good, that from then on, people asked for it. That's how the roasted kid from Des Puig became one of our star dishes. We ordered and slaughtered kids from different farms and markets, we even went to look for them in the Serra de Tramuntana and Lluc. We did an enormous amount of work with the kid and also with the suckling pig.

And what is the recipe for the Puig kid? How did you prepare it?

— It is a very easy recipe to make, but it requires time and patience. The first secret is in the marinade: the kid is left to marinate from one day to the next —or even two days— in a trough or bucket. We marinate it well with salt, black pepper and a good splash of lemon juice, leaving a dish at the bottom so that it marinates.

— After this time, we place it in the casserole dish to go into the oven. We add salt, carrot, and a good mince of garlic and parsley. Then we water it well with olive oil and lard on top and add the same amount of liqueur or wine, which should not be red, as it gives it a bad color. A good splash of cognac, white wine, or whatever we had on hand; we weren't picky! This splash of liqueur on top of the meat makes it not too strong and gives it an excellent aroma.

— And then comes the most important part: the cooking, which requires many hours in a very slow oven. It should be kept for about three hours or three and a half hours at around 100 degrees, so that the meat only simmers slowly in its own juices. If we were doing it in a wood-fired oven and saw that it was burning too strongly, we covered it with aluminum foil to protect it. At the very end, if we want it to have a nice crispy crust, we give it a blast of high heat in the oven — or we would add a bundle of wood — for the last few minutes. It remains tender inside and crispy outside. As you can see, there's no mystery to it; the secret is to do it with patience and love.

Surely in so much time of work they lived many anecdotes...

— And so! I remember one day we went to buy a piglet. We thought we had it dead and it escaped from us and then we couldn't catch it in any way. We have a thousand stories like this. We worked a lot, but a lot. There was never a lack of work at the restaurant. Sometimes, in the early morning, Pere Carreró and Biel would already bake a batch, trembling the kids. Perhaps at nine in the morning we would already be doing the second batch. We fought for it a lot, but it was also a joy to see how everything was going well and how it was filling up with visitors, taxi drivers, cars, and coaches. Another anecdote was that at first they told us that between the quarry of Coll de sa Grava, us, and the nuns, they could only put one telephone among the three of us. So, that's how they put it here and I was in charge of writing down the orders from the quarry, so many truckloads of gravel, so much of this, so much of that... and once a day they came to get the order.

What did it mean for the women of Montuïri to start working in the restaurant in those seventies?

— This was a huge change, it was too much! At that time, most women were at home. And with the Puig kitchen, they started to have paid work. We didn't take it into account then, but now we see how that was a great opportunity to have an economic income. At first, it was my mother, me, and family members, but little by little we needed more hands: we had women from Montuïri, Petra, and Vilafranca. I remember the pineapple we made, eating together... We had an excellent kitchen team.

Besides women, many young people earned their first wages as waiters...

— And so on. Toni's friends, when they finished classes or the entire summer season, would come to work as waiters. They earned their money, had a good time, and did a great job. Among them, we also had professional waiters, because the room was very large and very well-prepared staff was needed. I know I've said it, but we did a lot of work. In all those years, the strongest day, economically speaking and, therefore, in terms of work, that I remember from that whole period was one year for Mother's Day.

Later you opened Cas Carboner and for a season Ses Roques, near the Colony of Sant Jordi. What memory do you have of this entire career?

— I was always there for the work: in the kitchen, holding control and responsibility. I never backed down from the work. I am left with the memory of having lived a very intense and full-of-life stage. Despite the difficulties, the fear we went through at certain moments, or the tiredness from the kitchen, we created a space where people felt good, built a community, and shared many good times. El Puig de Sant Miquel has undoubtedly been a fundamental part of my life, and that is why I hope and wish the best to those who have taken over the new management.

— Cas Carboner or ses Roques were also spaces that worked very well and that for one reason or another we eventually had to close, but the memory of it all is more than positive and pleasant.