The old cuscussó from Ferreries, which is eaten with a spoon

Thanks to our good friend and collaborator, Pere Fraga, we can present you the recipe for the old cuscussó that is made in Ferreries for Christmas, which as we can see is very simple and does not contain almonds. The large quantities are from when recipes were measured in ounces and pounds.

It belongs to the recipe book of Pere Fraga’s mother, who learned it from her grandmother Gibet (born in 1890) and she did not know exactly if the original recipe was the one made by the Febrer family.

Pere tells us that “The preparation will be like in the other versions of cuscussó , as they explained it, they did it and we still do it at home at Christmas: The bread (of cuscussó ) is baked inside a large clay pot, with a deep bottom.

According to them, for it to be good, it must be stirred by hand, so when it is hot enough that you already burn yourself, it means that it is already sufficiently cooked. The bread must be cooked, but it must not be toasted, it cannot stop stirring for even a moment. Then the heat is lowered and with the residual heat that the clay pot retains, all the other ingredients are added, one after another, the last one is usually the sugar. It is then placed on chip plates (white porcelain) and compacted with hands. For it to be good, it must be very compact. “It is eaten on a plate with a spoon.”

A very interesting recipe, from the gastronomic memory of Menorca, and we thank Pere Fraga, a great botanist, for sending it to us.