The pastries of Holy Week and Easter in Menorca

Bep Al·lès/Ciutadella - On our island we have, as is also the case in most regions and countries of the Christian religion, our own cuisine related to Holy Week and Easter.

Since 6 weeks ago, we started Lent, a period of purification that other religions also have, such as the Muslim Ramadan or the Jewish Passover.

In our island, we represent Lent with the symbolic figure of a grandmother or a hunchbacked old woman, with a long nose and seven feet, one for each of the weeks that this period lasts, but it also carries symbolic elements such as the rosary, which reminds us that it is time to pray, and also the gastronomic symbols such as the grills, the cod and the oil pan.

These three indicate the eating of fish, with the image of cod, and the prohibition of eating meat with oil, which meant that it should not even be cooked with animal fat, as was the case with tallow.

In the past, the empanadas, which have a Jewish or Talayotic origin, were made following the guidelines of the Hebrew kitchen, therefore no tallow was added to the dough, but they were made with olive oil, the meat ones and the rubiols, and with butter the flaones or cheese empanadas and the curd ones, typical of Ciutadella, as well as cocas.

With the conversion of the Jews, there were important juderías or communities in Maó and Ciutadella, and to demonstrate that they had converted to the Christian religion, pork lard was incorporated into the pasta, and in the lamb empanadas, add the piece of bacon and the sobrasada, as the crespells with sobrasada also appear, because until then the crespells were filled with cottage cheese, jam, almond paste, membrillo, fig, sweet potato jam and those with suquet.

With the evolution also little by little they are gaining strength, especially in the 20th century, the pork empanadas, which we can find daily in the ovens, and others little by little are disappearing like the fish empanadas, which were made with chicken, with cod and peppers, or vegetables with raisins and pine nuts, although nowadays, as is the case with pork, in this case the most common filling is tuna with vegetables such as Swiss chard or spinach or with hard-boiled egg mince.

Archduke Luis Salvador, in his list of the most common foods and meals for Menorcans in the 19th century, notes the number of different cakes and pastries typical of Lent, Holy Week and Easter, but unfortunately without the recipe.

He informs us of the hot cocas, which were eaten during Lent, Holy Week and fasting days; cottage cheese cocas, also typical of spring and Holy Week; those with spinach, those with fresh fish, those with salted fish, cocas with barrel sardines, asparagus cocas, bean cocas.. We also had Easter cakes and Easter cakes.

Other pastry products that the archduke gives us a record of are crespells with cottage cheese, but he tells us that during Lent and Holy Week, preserves, almond crespells, sweet potato and suquet are no longer consumed .

As for the meat empanadas, the archduke informs us that in addition to the lamb empanadas, goat meat was also made to celebrate Easter, and that the cheese empanadas, in addition to being typical for Easter they were also from Pentecost.

Luis Salvador from Austria also tells us about fish empanadas and suquet empanadas, as well as pork empanadas.

Other products that were consumed on these days and that have been lost are the Lenten cookies and the cod cake.