Cooking to eat, a delicious anachronism
Two weeks ago I bought a rabbit at the butcher's. I asked them to cut it into pieces. I put the thighs, shoulders, and meatiest parts of the loin, which I had seasoned with salt and pepper, into a pan with enough oil. When they started to brown, I added two small potatoes and, after a few minutes, a large chopped onion. I seasoned it well with salt. It was finger-licking good.
Meanwhile, in another pot, I sautéed a grated onion and a grated ramellet tomato. Then, with salt and pepper, I added the remaining rabbit parts, including the liver, heart, and kidneys, all chopped into small pieces. When I thought it was cooked to my liking, I added water and let it simmer for a while. I added a tablespoon of pepper, a handful of beans, and another of chickpeas. I put two capers in the freezer. And the third, for the next day, in the refrigerator. Since I was at the supermarket buying other things for the house, I looked, unsuccessfully, for a package of burballes (one of those big supermarkets, you know what I mean). I didn't bother asking if they had them. I found myself explaining that it was a medium-sized pasta shaped like waves on a stormy day, and I thought it would be better to go somewhere more suitable, where as soon as I walked in the door they'd greet me and I could ask without feeling embarrassed if they had burballes. They did. And we ate them. You've never seen anything so delicious.
These two recipes aren't much of a secret. They're very simple. And inexpensive. They just need time and love. I know them because I've always seen my mother make them. Cooking is another element of this fading Mallorca, of this 800-year-old Catalan Mediterranean culture, who knows, maybe even centuries older. Mainland Catalans have always admired the cultural vigor that our island identity allowed us to maintain until almost the 21st century. The language, the songs, the festivals and also the cuisine. The cuisine of the holidays: the bread puddings, the blondies, the little donkeys (crespells or estrellas, if you're not from Manacor), Christmas soup, suckling pig... but also everyday dishes: burballes (a type of flatbread), rice (dirty or rotero rice), broths, noodles, soups (matances soup, summer soup, aguiados soup), cakes, roasts... and the unmistakable taste for good bread (knowing which bakery it came from...). All this is Mallorca, all this is culture.
The reader with a sweet tooth will have to forgive me for the culinary prelude. But there's an explanation for why it's going on so long. 3CatInfo published a report the other day alerting us that in Spain (what a shame that TV3 and its successor brands have lost their frame of reference in so many things) the consumption of ultra-processed products has tripled in the last thirty years. Bags of potato chips are one example, Inescapable on any festive table, but also frozen pizzas, cookies, sugary cereals, soft drinks, processed pastries, frozen glazes, pre-cooked lasagnas or cannelloni, ice cream, yogurts...
The 21st century has plunged us into the most frenetic modernity, into this trend of living fast and no longer wasting time on the everyday, lest we become vulgar. During the week, a quick steak, two fried eggs, some French fries. This is on the days they don't buy it ready-made at the supermarket (all large stores now have a prepared food section) or order it from a Chinese restaurant. And on weekends, dinner out. Paid work and leisure occupy the time of most people, who, in general, don't want to grant themselves the beauty of slowness or the innocent happiness of pausing. It's clear that each person is a world unto themselves, but I find more peace in locking myself in the kitchen for two hours than paying 50 euros for 50 minutes of yoga or Pilates.
However, it's clear that everything gets tiring. The obligation to feed a family combined with work, whether on an intensive schedule (finishing at three doesn't bode well for family lunches) or a split shift (with two or three hours to commute and then make and eat lunch in between), becomes a burden for many people that they try to offload onto others.
And once again, when we talk about upholding care, tradition, culture, and slow, deliberate rhythms, we again encounter the presence of women, who were the ones who managed the family's food with imagination, dietary awareness, and a seasonal and historical perspective. Women's entry into the workforce has destroyed caregiving (now mostly institutionalized in schools, extracurricular activities, and nursing homes). geriatric care facilities) and has also devastated the kitchen as we understood it until near the end of the last century.
These days mark 20 years since Antoni Tugores published A memory of Mallorcan cuisineA monumental book that gathers the most common recipes, but also those lost to the annals of time, based on interviews with cooks from all over the island—a treasure vanishing on a floor covered with torn calendar pages.
It is, therefore, everyone's responsibility not only to stand firm against the unstoppable advance of ultra-processed foods, but also to ensure the preservation of seasonal food, local vegetables, and meat. Let's return to resourceful, economical, simple, tasty, imaginative, and healthy cooking. We will be happier, and we will be more ourselves.
