My little vegetable garden grew every day. Weeding, tying up the tomato plants, and watching how the water, drop by drop, quenched the plants' thirst rewarded me with a bounty of tasty fruits. Only the pumpkin plant resisted, until one day it seemed to wake up from its laziness, as if the heat had plunged it into a long lethargy. Its shoots began to grow and exceed the parceled limits of the garden. A branch, free on the other side of the fence, filled with healthy and vigorous fruits, like an open hand generously offering its gifts.

The British presence in Menorca during the 18th century left its mark on many aspects of island life. Contacts with England favored the arrival of new tastes, ingredients, and customs that, over time, were incorporated into the recipe books of Menorcan households. One of the most significant elements of this legacy is butter, which occupies a prominent place in many preparations. In a domestic kitchen where lard played a fundamental role in the making of pastries and sweets, butter offered other possibilities: it provided an unctuous texture, a characteristic aroma, and a particular consistency to the doughs. Its incorporation did not necessarily mean the abandonment of traditional fats, but rather the expansion of a repertoire enriched with new ingredients and techniques.

The 'panadera' is one of the most representative stews of the traditional Menorcan recipe book. The DCVB defines it as a "potato stew with a previously made sauté of garlic, onion, tomato, and parsley". It must be said that the potato, so present now, was not part of the dish in its origins, as is demonstrated in theArt of cooking, the cookbook that Friar Roger wrote in the 18th century. In this cookbook we find up to twelve preparations that receive this name. Friar Roger's "panaderes" are made of fish, lobster, shrimp, oysters, freshwater crayfish, and even kid goat feet. There are also some made of carrots, spinach, and artichokes.

I liked passing by the dovecote when I went to his house. It looked like a large cupboard with wire mesh doors. Instead of dishes or books, the pigeons rested there, watching me restlessly. Those wide-open eyes clamored to get out, and I enjoyed opening the cage for them because I knew they would return soon. I found it curious that they preferred the comfort of a roof over the freedom of flight. A complicated choice. In some compartments there were nests with tiny eggs; in others, the absorbed squabs, always waiting.

I would crumble bread a couple of days old with my fingers and collect it in an earthenware plate that had a little rim painted red. Then I would crack the eggs into it, beat them, and make that tasty and consistent omelet in a small, blackened frying pan. Sometimes I would add garlic and parsley, but I preferred the primitive simplicity of the one that only had bread. We would eat it on the porch, sitting at the low table protected by a floral oilcloth battered by the cut of some knife. I still seem to taste it. It was so good that I was in no hurry to finish it and tried to make the bite last.

My mother used to collect fennel seeds from the paths surrounding the small house and leave them to dry on a piece of newspaper. Those little seeds in the sun were the beginning of a cycle that started with small routines: the prepared white cloths coming out of the box, the clean jars, the long and thick needles, the parts of the manual machinery being checked again, the threads and the ropes. A whole dance of objects that, when the time came, would come to life until the cycle closed once again. It has been a few years since this cycle was broken and I have a small grief anchored within me. A small, constant, and annoying prick that seeks that awakening of inanimate things. A system collapsed like a house of cards made of newspaper.

Blai Bonet says in the prologue of The mahi-mahi: a myth of autumn, by Enric Massutí and Sebastià Vidal (Documenta Balear, 1997), that the dolphinfish is a long-awaited being. It does not arrive until the weather signals its time and it leaves when the weather announces the end of its presence, at the end of autumn. Few words describe so well the relationship between this fish and the sea's calendar.

Summer stretches out like a heavy shadow. There is no conversation that does not begin with the heaviness of these months, the difficulty of enduring the high temperature, and how the humidity has clung to the skin like a heavy fabric. They say that next year they will be even higher and we breathe deeply while we think about how we will be able to endure it. But we will adapt to it, for survival, as we have adapted to what the land gave us, to the changes in the landscape, to the loss.

In Ibiza and Formentera, the vocabulary related to livestock conveys a way of life where raising sheep and goats was part of the peasant economy and daily diet. It is not simply an abundance of names, but a precise lexicon that allowed animals to be distinguished according to species, sex, age, or their function within the flock.Words like ‘xai’, ‘anyell’, ‘moltó’, ‘ovella’, ‘cabrit’, ‘cabra’, and ‘boc’ are part of this rural universe. In the case of ovines, ‘xai’ and ‘anyell’ denote the young of the sheep, while ‘moltó’ identifies the adult male and ‘ovella’, the female. Among caprines, ‘cabrit’ is the name for the young, while ‘cabra’ and ‘boc’ distinguish adult animals according to sex. These are words known in the Catalan language as a whole, but in the Pitiuses they are integrated within a much broader peasant terminology, where differences in the animal’s age and state could have practical importance.

Traditional pastry making constitutes one of the richest gastronomic heritages of the Balearic Islands. Cultural exchange, the utilization of available resources, and the transmission of culinary knowledge from generation to generation have given rise to an extraordinarily wide repertoire of cakes, pastries, pies, cookies, and sweets that have accompanied religious celebrations, family parties, and the agricultural calendar. This diversity not only responds to the creativity of bakers and pastry chefs, but also to the fundamental role that domestic kitchens, convents, and prosperous homes have played in the conservation and transmission of this heritage.

Cod has been for centuries one of the great protagonists of our cuisine. Its long preservation made it an essential food when fresh fish was scarce or inaccessible, but also an ingredient capable of adapting to the rhythm of the seasons. While in winter it was accompanied by seasonal vegetables such as green leaves, with the arrival of summer it found its best allies in garden fruits: tomatoes, peppers, and in some cases, eggplants.

The folding chairs and rocking chairs swirled in groups from one end of the street to the other. My grandmothers, Aunt Magdalena and Mrs. Juanaina, sat in our midst. Further on were Mrs. Panerera and Mrs. Verda, and on the other side were Ms. Xisca from Can Feliu, Ms. Bet, and Ms. Tonina from Can Sastre. They began to enjoy the cool evening air before dinner, when the heat subsided and it felt better to be outside than inside the houses. When it was time to sit down to eat, the chairs were outside, alone, as if a cataclysm had made disappear the people who had occupied them until then. As the street filled with darkness, the neighbors reclaimed the street and the murmur of conversations and laughter resumed. We children went back and forth from one side to the other, from group to group; at times we played, at others we sat and listened to stories to pass the time. Sometimes someone brought out ice cream made with an almond preparation. We enjoyed the cool air. The street was ours.

Lobster fishing is one of the most traditional and valuable artisanal fishing activities in the Balearic Islands. This crustacean lives on rocky bottoms and is mainly caught with traps, a selective fishing gear that allows young specimens and egg-bearing females to be preserved. Its exploitation is subject to very strict regulations, with closed seasons, limitations on the number of traps, and a minimum catch size, measures that have contributed to maintaining some of the best-preserved populations in the Mediterranean. Although catches are limited, its high commercial value makes it one of the most profitable fisheries for the Balearic artisanal fleet. Beyond its economic interest, lobster holds a prominent place in the gastronomic heritage of the Islands, especially in Menorca.

They had installed the perch in the kitchen. The feathered ducks swayed there, hanging from a hook. A macabre curtain from which the animals had just dripped the last drops of blood. The scorched skin gave off a metallic and penetrating smell that mixed with the scalded feathers. Those powerful animals that organized the coop with their scandalous comings and goings looked like others, stripped and sad, staring at you from that small head with cloudy eyes.

The combination of meat, sugar, and fruit was for centuries one of the most distinctive characteristics of medieval cuisine. Far from understanding sweet and savory as two separate worlds, cooks sought harmony between different flavors. Andalusian cuisine had developed a wide repertoire of dishes where meat was combined with fruits, nuts, and aromatic spices, an influence that left a deep mark on the territories of the Crown of Aragon. At the same time, the great Catalan medieval recipe books, such as the Llibre de Sent Soví (14th century) and the Llibre del Coch, by Robert de Nola (1520), collect numerous preparations in which the use of sugar and fruit is common, especially in dishes of game, poultry, and veal.

Little did Christopher Columbus imagine that his journey would end up transforming the way half the world ate. They had set sail with the objective of opening a new route to the riches of the East, especially spices, highly prized and coveted for centuries. Instead of the Indies, they found a continent unknown to the Castilians. And, with it, a biodiversity that would forever change the history of gastronomy.

We had coffee facing each other, sitting at the kitchen table. It was the little pleasure after lunch with my grandmother. She prepared the coffee maker and I took out the cups and the anise. Inside the display cabinet where she kept it, the smells of liqueurs and the wood of the furniture mingled. Some bottles had never been opened, the yellowish seal unbroken betrayed them, others were wrapped in cellophane; presents from France that were savored on special occasions. She poured me that transparent liquid like one perfumes coffee with a pinch of cinnamon. This was our ritual: coffee, conversation, and a teaspoon of sweet anise while she watched me with a mischievous girl's smile.

Then the street was flanked by plots of land. The almond trees leaned over our path, offering such green almonds that we could still eat the skin. We opened them with our teeth and took out the kernel that burst in our mouths like a small gulp of acidic water. We filled our pockets with them and ran off in fours for fear that some neighbor might give us away. In the month of September, when it was time to harvest the almonds, I always ate some of those we shelled outside the cloths. The pulp broke crunchily in the mouth, milky and sweet, braving such a wonderful transformation, just like a chrysalis waiting for its final state.

The summer solstice, the moment of the year when the day is longest and the night is shortest, has been celebrated for thousands of years by many of the cultures that have populated the earth. These were pagan festivals where ritual celebrations were held and where the triumph of light over darkness was celebrated. This is the case of the festivities of Classical Greece dedicated to the god Apollo, god of the Sun, during which purifying bonfires were lit. When Christianity spread, the Church adapted many of these existing festivities. This is the case of Saint John, the day on which the birth of the saint is celebrated. According to tradition, Saint John was born at 12 AM, at the same time as Jesus was born and exactly six months before him.

Bread, a staple food for humanity, seems to have originated by chance. It is said that the first inhabitants collected wild cereals and then used the grain by crushing it between two stones to make porridge. It is believed that one day, someone forgot some of this porridge near the fire, or perhaps poured it intentionally onto a hot stone. The result was a dry, flat, and crispy paste, the first unleavened bread (without yeast) in history. Bread as we know it today, fluffy, with crumb and volume, was born in ancient Egypt. Chance again played in its favor when some forgotten shepherd captured some of the yeast fungi that live suspended in the air. That dough swelled and when they found it, they decided to bake it. The result was truly a miracle: a soft, tasty, and much easier to digest bread.