Sa Gelateria, four decades refreshing and sweetening Menorca

Last July, Eduard Eroles, master ice cream maker, left us at the age of 78, and who, together with his wife, Maria Jesús Martí, introduced artisanal natural ice creams to Menorca in the 1980s. of Foodies on Menorca we want to take back a memory towards him, while reproducing the report that we published in the Weekly El Iris in July 2017 on the occasion of the first 35 years of Sa Gelateria, and which was written by Joan Mascaró with photographs of Bep Al·lès For this new layout of the report, we have also added photographs of Sa Gelateria itself.

It was the evening of June 17th 35 years ago (1982) when Sa Gelateria de Menorca (all in one with the commercial name of Gelats Baixamar) opened its doors for the first time in Ciutadella, in a cave on the coast de Baixamar where fishermen used to keep their boats and their utensils.

There, which was both the place of sale and production of ice cream, Eduard Eroles Camats (El Poal -Lleida-, 1946) and Maria Jesús Martí Camps (Ciutadella, 1940), founders and also current owners of the business, they started serving ice cream and slushies in 18 different flavors, making between 3 and 4 thousand liters that debut season and having 4 or 5 workers. Three and a half decades later, Sa Gelateria de Menorca, with natural and native ingredients wherever possible and with around 32 workers, produces between 70 and 80 thousand liters of ice cream and slush per season. This with almost 60 different flavors and having become a social reference and of the sweetest Menorca in terms of native and artisanal natural ice creams, which are sold not only in the own stores in Ciutadella and Maó but also in four other locations franchisees in Menorca and through several supermarkets and restaurants on the island.

No previous contact with the world of ice cream

Like all beginnings, this of Sa Gelateria was not easy either, and perhaps even less so, in this case, for some people who, despite their adventurous and always innovative and service spirit, had never before been in contact with this world of ice cream, ice and cold. Although it is, quite the opposite, because as Eduard Eroles himself jokingly says, his previous job before making ice cream, for example, was selling... stoves!

The question of some friends and the answer

Precisely, it was after Eduard became unemployed, due to the decapitalization of the company and its bankruptcy, when the marriage, with two children, proposed a change of course in his life, being then when they appeared the ice creams Already with the decapitalized company and with the predisposition to look for a house in Ciutadella, it was in the summer of 1981 when they came to Menorca for a few days of vacation. And it was having dinner with some friends when, through them, they met representatives of importers of artisanal ice cream machines from Italy, and when the question arose: "why don't you make ice cream in Menorca?"

A start with ten tastes and with water from the Seminar

With that self-taught learning, on June 17, 1982, they opened the store with ice creams and sorbets in 18 different flavors, including chocolate alone or combined, for example, with hazelnuts, rum or cointreau; cream also all alone or with fruits or anuses; and, at the same time, with very novel flavors such as those of banana, blackberry or abatzer, apricot or liver, something truly extraordinary at that time. Or also lemon (now a Sa Gelateria classic but which at first caused some reluctance due to its white color, which is its natural color) or lemon with gin, coinciding with the arrival of the Saint's John Day festivities.

One of the many curiosities of those beginnings is that the water they used, when at that time water was not yet sold in bottles of several liters, they went to find it directly from the cistern of the Seminary's cloister, pouring it manually and as other private people still did. This, taking into account that it had to be good for making both the sorbets and the lemon slush they already made and that it is also one of the current hallmarks of Sa Gelateria, which also make strawberry slush and, of special form, gin with lemonade. By the way, another curiosity, this current one and related to what we are talking about, is that lemons, for Saint John and to make all these products, squeeze a good amount, lately several hundreds of kilos of this fruit.