From selling fritters in the center of Palma in front of a shopping center with the same recipe

Xisco Busquets remembers the queues that would form outside the Can Gil bakery to buy buñuelos for Virgin Mary's Day. He was a neighbor of the bakery on Blanquerna Street, so the smell of buñuelos has always been present in his life. He used to watch Juana, the bakery owner, making them over a charcoal stove. In 1987, Joana came to his house and asked him if he would like to make buñuelos to sell with her. They started out in Blanquerna but soon moved to a two-square-meter shop at 35 Sant Miquel Street. They had antique scales and weighed the buñuelos on the street.

They sold buñuelos there for almost 20 years, but their lease ended and they left Sant Miquel Street. Busquets confesses that gentrification also affected his business. "Mallorcan people liked the smell of buñuelos on the street, but foreigners didn't. They made us install smoke extractors, they sent us inspections, and they reported us," he laments.

However, Busquets had no intention of stopping making buñuelos, even though he was working for a media outlet as a journalist at the time. While conducting an interview, he found the solution he was looking for. "I asked if the panadas would disappear, and they told me no, but that they would be sold to shopping centers and supermarkets because the bakeries that made them would disappear. And I thought I'd go make buñuelos in shopping centers," he explains.

So, he opened the company Bunyols Boníssims and has been selling this product for almost 20 years outside the Carrefour on General Riera and also the Fan Mallorca Shopping center. "We're all happy because this product is very much ours, and not much is made," she says. Virgin Mary's Day and All Saints' Day are the season's peak. In fact, today they've sold "countless" kilograms, according to an employee at the Buñoles Buenísimos store located on General Riera. As soon as we entered the parking lot, the faint scent of fritters could be heard, and a line of people waiting to buy them could be seen outside.

The employee also asserted that, although they don't always have the same line as today, they do have regular customers. "There are people who eat them all year round," she stated. For her part, Busquets believes that schools have played "a very important role" in the revaluation of buñuelos. "In schools, they serve buñuelos, and when they're ready, the children fly off the shelves, just like I used to see Madò Joana make them and she loved them too," she compares.

She also points out that people from other countries also eat them because "in their countries, they make other products like yuca, and they identify with them." He's a fan of Juana's recipe. It says homemade mashed potatoes, water, yeast, and a touch of vanilla. He has no problem saying what he puts in the buñuelos he sells because he believes that "the secret isn't in the recipe, but in all the ingredients that make it good."

To make a good buñuelo, "the batter must be just right: neither too soft nor too firm," he explains. The oil must also be very hot, but not too hot. "If it's too hot, you'll burn the buñuelo, and if it's not, it will be very oily," he explains. The last important factor is to eat it freshly made and, as Busquets likes it, "coated with sugar."