June, the month of Saint John

Tomorrow, the 22nd, will be the night of the bonfires in Ciutadella, which, in the former capital of Menorca, are lit for the Saint John festivities. In the past, on the night of the 23rd, it was the caixer senyor who put the wood, but in the 60s and 70s this was lost and it was not until well into the 80s when the Col·lectiu Folklòric Ciutadella recovered its custom, moving the celebration to the 22nd, the night before the Saturday of Saint John , so as not to interfere with the festivities that were already very different from those of the post-war San Juans. Tomorrow will be a night of bonfires, songs, gin and lemonade, sweet and savoury cakes, pastissets and Vienna rolls with sobrasada, fandango dancing, and a prelude to the main festivities.

June is the month of apricots, cherries, and pears from La Nau, also known as Saint John or Saint Peter. It is also the month when cows dry out, which means they do not produce as much milk, and therefore cheese production decreases, and it is when the pieces of cheese that have been saved for the provision of aged or cured cheese are consumed, as well as the time to eat the old sobrasadas, the larger ones that we have reserved, mainly, for the Saint John festivities, which is where the gastronomy of this weekend will revolve, when the fig tree will give us its "brevas" figs and the bees their honeycombs, and in the vicinity of the coast we will take advantage of the days close to the summer solstice festival to go and collect chamomile and also St. John's wort.

SAINT JOHN
The Saint John festivities in Ciutadella are the ones that open the summer and the route of town festivals where the horse is the protagonist.

In Ciutadella the most typical dishes of the festival are:
For breakfast and snack, the ensaimada with hot chocolate, as well as bread with companions (sobrasada, cuixot, carn i xulla, botifarró blanc and cheese), Vienna rolls with sobrasada, empanadillas with minced meat or fish, cocas with tomato, with red peppers or sofrito, as well as those with apricots and cherries.

For lunch the most typical dishes are meatballs with hazelnut sauce or with almond sauce, which are gradually being replaced by meatballs with tomato sauce. Until seventy years ago, rabbit with peppers or onions were also common dishes, which could be eaten hot or cold, because the feast of San Juan is not a feast for sitting at the table for too long. Recently, stews and rice with lobster, seafood dishes or going to eat in restaurants have been added. Things of the evolution and globalization of the festival.

The most traditional dessert is manjar blanco, which is also eaten for breakfast accompanied by crespellets on Domingo des Be (Sunday of Lamb), as are also typical desserts such as almond cake, cream fritters and seasonal fruits, such as cherries, figs and apricots.

Also prominent were and are sugar cubes soaked in water and anise, macaroons made of sugar and egg white, as well as sweets, sugared almonds and in the past filled hazelnuts.