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.

One of the most emblematic bars of traditional Mallorcan cuisine says goodbye. Ca'n Biel Felip has announced the definitive closure of the restaurant, in a publication on social networks, after more than thirty years of trajectory, a decision that the establishment itself admits "is never easy". The venue, recognized this year with the award for the best classic bar in the Balearic Islands, is now negotiating a possible succession so that the business can continue with a new stage. According to reports, the main reason for the closure is the lack of generational succession.

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.

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.

There are cuisines that not only nourish, but also explain who we are: those that are passed down in silence, from generation to generation, and that live in memory before recipe books. From this invisible thread starts A kitchen in every home, the book by Pau Gómez Calvo, which combines memories, recipes, and reflection to reclaim a domestic legacy that, according to the author, is undergoing a complete transformation.

The sofrit pagès suffers like never before. Yes: it's a very bad pun. The situation of Pitiüsan gastronomy is also not good. Sofrit and other Ibizan specialities are drowning amidst an avalanche of pizzas, tacos, sushi, chicken tikka masala and spring rolls. Not to mention the competition from Michelin-starred restaurants, establishments by famous chefs and fast food franchises. It's an unequal fight. A quick search on Google Maps reveals the difference in forces: in the capital of the main Pitiüsa island alone, the search engine offers 23 Japanese restaurants, 16 Chinese restaurants, 24 restaurants classified as Italian cuisine, 21 pizza-only places, and 23 Mediterranean cuisine. There isn't a specific tab for local cuisine, but we must assume it's included in the 'Mediterranean cuisine' category. Without even going online, any Ibizan knows they will have plenty of options if they want to eat sushi or pizza, and practically none if they fancy a sofrit pagès, the main meat dish of traditional Ibizan cuisine.But the sofrit is no longer alone. Last week, the Academy of Balearic Islands Cuisine was presented to the public in an event at the Consell d’Eivissa; this organization, for the first time, has four members from the Pitiüsa Islands, three from Ibiza and one from Formentera. A kind of Pitiüsan resistance against culinary globalization. There was talk of "defending our own" and the "danger of extinction" of local cuisine. It is still relatively easy to find the famous fish stew (bullit de peix) on the menus of Pitiüsan beach restaurants – another matter is whether the fish used is truly Pitiüsan – alongside international cuisine dishes. It is much more difficult to find less popular preparations, such as sofrit and borrida de ratjada. The same applies to desserts; beyond flaó on some menus and perhaps greixonera, it will be almost impossible for you to find any other.

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.

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.

The imposing mulberry tree offered shade and fruit to the hens when it was the season. There was enough space to roam all day, to peck at small blades of grass that didn't have time to grow, or to put an end to some insect that had had the bad luck to enter. At the back was the old nesting box where the birds went to lay their eggs and the old rabbit hutches that now served to store grain. A metal bed base converted into a door that never closed invited the hens to enter when the sun set. I liked to go looking for the eggs, discovering that offering that the little animals left us inside a box covered with straw. It surprised me that they were so unconcerned, absent of jealousy for that perfect little box that had come out of their bodies.

The best llonguet of Mallorca is not eaten in the capital, but in the heart of the Pla region. In fact, it is made in the beautiful center of the island, in Lloret de Vistalegre, and precisely very close to the spot where the marker indicating what - for many people - is the center of Mallorca is located.

The best llonguet from Mallorca is not eaten in the capital, but in the heart of the Pla region. In fact, it is made in the center of the island, in Lloret de Vistalegre, and precisely very close to the place where the milestone indicating what - for many people - is the center of Mallorca is located.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The kitchen filled with a white light, as if flour had taken the place of light.

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.