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.

An enormous casserole dish presided over the center. We sat around it. Someone cut bread with a small knife and ate directly from the dish with the help of a slice. The others repeated the gesture and took our share without haste. Then the old man said that when he was little, everyone would pounce like a ferret when the plate touched the table. There was hunger. He and his brothers learned to eat quickly and since then he had an instinct, a jolt that twisted his throat and stomach when lunchtime arrived. It was necessary to feed, to calm the groans that echoed in the belly. In his memory lived the smells of his mother's dishes, the taste of dishes he would never taste again and that he still felt. Cuisine made of nothing that configured a world, a handful, a pinch, a trickle.

Tuna, at the center of everything

The Port of Pollença was once again filled with people this weekend for the second edition of Sabors de la Badia, a gastronomic event that has already become one of the main showcases for local produce and seafood cuisine. Throughout Saturday and Sunday, hundreds of people passed through Saralegui promenade and Gabriel Roca engineer's square, in an edition marked by the atmosphere, gastronomy, and the absolute prominence of red tuna fished in the Balearic Islands.

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Doughnuts constitute one of the most widespread types of traditional pastry within the peninsular sphere. This fried dough, generally in the shape of a ring or a closed horseshoe, made with flour, fat, eggs, and some flavorings, refers to a much older origin, to preparations of doughs fried in oil, often sweetened with honey or sugar, already documented in the classical world and which later developed in medieval cuisine.

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The Mexican restaurants of the Balearic Islands are gaining ground in high-end state gastronomy. The Casa de México Foundation in Spain and the Mexican Academy of Gastronomy have recognized 10 establishments in the Islands with the Sello Copil seal, an accreditation that highlights establishments that preserve the authenticity of Mexican cuisine and its culinary identity.

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The acidic smell of vinegar wafted through the kitchen, cutting through the bitterness of the green beans and the aromas of boiled vegetables. I knew that when I sat down at the table, the ordeal would begin. Spring had burst, the pods were flowering and the beans grew tender and crisp, stuffed with small green pearls inside. There was always a small furrow or two of broad beans in the yard, and some days some of these fruits would arrive at our table in a formidable, unavoidable green bean dish.

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“We started 20 years ago. Little by little. Now everyone promotes and cooks Sant Marc snails… but at the time we were the first”, explains Guillem Garí, owner of the Es Cruce restaurant in Vilafranca, the temple of one of the most sought-after Majorcan dishes this week on the island.

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The Llonguet Fair will celebrate its tenth edition this Sunday, April 26, in the es Pil·larí neighborhood, in Palma, with a program that will run from 9 in the morning until 5 PM and will combine gastronomy, crafts, and family activities. The event, already consolidated in the city's festive calendar, expects to gather thousands of visitors throughout the day.

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Few plants have accompanied humans throughout history as much as gourds. Present in cultures on every continent, they have been much more than food: they have served as containers, tools, musical instruments, and even life preservers. Currently, we associate them with gastronomic terms, as part of creams, in stews, pickles, and desserts.

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My slaughtered animal hung from a scaffold. It had its belly open, a large empty cavity from which the gold that would be offered fried had been extracted. It seemed that its eyes had followed point by point the entire sequence of its dismemberment and had been horrified by it: the drained blood, the offal, further on the gut that was beginning to be limed to remove all dirt, the clean and lemoned intestines hanging from some reeds. A wild scene, an impossible puzzle to reassemble.

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Is the empanada a pie? An empanada? It seems simple, but it isn't. Because when you try to define it, you understand that it's not just a dish: it's a world. On the Mediterranean islands —from the Balearics, with Mallorca and Menorca, to Sardinia— each place seems to know perfectly what an empanada is... until the discussion begins. From Palma to Maó, from Assemini, in southern Sardinia, to Cuglieri, in the province of Oristano, to Oschiri, in Gallura, each community defends theirs as the most authentic. And they are all right.

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The streets awaited the passage in silence while the songs were still heard in the distance in a dull murmur. The procession passed, the mournful songs of the mourners chilled our blood with their sadness. They spoke of death and forgiveness, of promised paradises that fled, winding with the jingle of the chain of a penitent and anonymous Christ. We knew nothing of all that, of the grief, we were children and our paradise was a pocket full of sweets.

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The first World Days of Ibizan Flaó are here. Sant Josep de sa Talaia will host several events and presentations on the weekend of April 10-12 with the aim of promoting and reviving one of the most important traditional dishes of the Pitiusas Islands, at a time when globalization seems to be consuming local traditions and history.

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The Palma Wine Fest will hold its third edition in 2026 with notable new features such as expanding the venue to include Ses Voltes, in the Parc de la Mar, and changing the dates to October. This was agreed upon at a meeting held this Friday between the new management team of the Mallorca Wine Regulatory Council, headed by Mateu Morro; the Mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez; and the Councilor for Commerce, Restaurants, and the Self-Employed, Lupe Ferrer. The festival, declared an activity of municipal public interest, is establishing itself as one of the highlights of Mallorca's gastronomic calendar. Last year's edition featured around fifty wineries from the island. Nearly 30,000 attendees gathered for a day focused on promoting the responsible consumption of local wines with a quality seal. Sources at Palma City Hall have expressed their support for the event, which, with this expansion of spaces and the change of dates, aims to continue growing and reinforce its role as a showcase for the Mallorcan wine sector.

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The history of gastronomy cannot be understood without the constant movement of cooks. Long before culinary schools existed, knowledge circulated among those who controlled the kitchen. In the case of royal cooks, it was not surprising that they traveled from one kingdom to another, serving kings, nobles, or high dignitaries. With them traveled not only techniques, but also ingredients, serving styles, and the very essence of a banquet.

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Descending the Blau de Portocristo coast (officially Bordils Street), a steep slope on the seafront leading to the town beach and next to a small area of ​​wild pine forest, lies Flamingo, the most famous restaurant and a testament to the town's history. A staircase leads first to a small building (a ground floor with a dining room) and then opens onto a simple terrace with spectacular views. A few years ago, just after the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, the massive influx of tourists threatened its unique character; that of a place created and designed for local customers, which saw foreigners 'colonizing' what it had been intentionally keeping as a culinary haven.

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We used to play on the seashore, mostly digging holes that would soon fill with water. We would have loved for starfish and seahorses, like the ones we saw in other children's plastic buckets, to suddenly inhabit them. Sometimes we went to the reefs where the rocks fiercely sheltered the snails. I was never able to bring myself to eat them. They had the strength of the sea in their bodies and their taste, perfectly camouflaged in their surroundings. If the waves wouldn't let us swim, we would look for crabs in the crevices of the rocks. It wasn't easy to fool them because our little feet betrayed us, and they would soon retreat into dives impossible for us. Some of these species are now protected, and although I'm relieved I was never the cause of their disappearance, it pains me to know they are in such a fragile state.

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With this enthusiastic and apt phrase begins the prologue of one of the most unique and valuable recipe books of the island's gastronomic tradition, Popular Mallorcan cuisinePublished in Sóller in 1931. The small-format work was printed at the printing establishment of Salvador Calatayud, who had already participated in some of the many editions of the work The guinea pig of MallorcaAttributed to Pere de Alcántara Peña.

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One of the great gastronomic debates among groups of friends in Mallorca is which is the best place to eat the best bread with olive oil And what makes it truly special? Despite its simple appearance, this essential dish of traditional Mallorcan cuisine depends on factors that go far beyond the basic combination of bread and oil. The debate revolves around the type of bread, the quality of the extra virgin olive oil and its aromatic profile, the salt, and even how the dish is served: whether with sliced ​​tomato, cured meats, or simply plain. Some argue that the best bread with oil is that which respects the purest tradition, while others value modern reinterpretations that play with textures and local ingredients.

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Anthony Bourdain said that the best way to get to know someone is to share a meal, and that when someone invites you to sit at their table, they are really inviting you into their world. Because in every dish, however simple, there is a story, and every recipe is a journey of no return. The municipality of Algaida travels the world through the kitchens of the families who live in the town and in the villages of Pina and Randa, transforming gastronomy into a meeting place where diversity is experienced, shared, and celebrated.

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