The “real food” of Menorca

Bep Al·lès / Ciutadella – We live in a society in which we live surrounded by pre-cooked foods that we are told help make our lives easier, but their abuse can have very harmful effects on our health, ranging from overweight, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes… There are more and more studies that warn us of this food plague and recommend that we return to real food, to the diet of our grandmothers and also change our habits, both in the kitchen and in the way we buy food.

A journey back to traditional foods, in their most natural state, or what can also be translated into a firm commitment to local products, which should be the protagonist of 75% of our shopping basket. That is why we will bet on seasonal foods, the return to markets or establishments that bet on fresh and unmanipulated products, although we must recognize that there are some processed foods that are good, such as frozen foods, dishes cooked by local companies and with their production and consumption date displayed, canned fish such as sardines, tuna, and molluscs such as mussels, cockles, olive oil...

Changing our eating and buying habits is necessary, firstly to opt for fresh food, and secondly to avoid those that come in plastic trays or bags, avoiding the hidden sugar of processed and ultra-processed foods, which we will find in the form of brown sugar, panela, dextrose, fructose, maltodextrin, saccharose, maltose...

Real food Menorcan style

We can also opt for our local recipe book, for the cooking of our mothers and grandmothers, returning to the cooking of when we were little, those of us who are now over 50 years old. For a snack, eat processed cereals, muesli, granola, granola with added sugar and fats, have a good snack of xeixa bread or oven-baked bread, not industrial, with cheese, local sausages such as cuixot or sobrasada, or even do as we did when we were little with a chocolate bar made from 100% natural cocoa. Change the biscuits and industrial pastries for our own products such as curled biscuits, crespellets, duquesitas, cocas de patata… If our children are hamburger and ketchup eaters, change to a sandwich or a plate of meatballs with homemade tomato…

We must return to the consumption of fish, meat and vegetables from Menorca, those that are in season. For example, avoid chicken nuggets and make a breaded chicken breast at home and instead of processed fish sticks, serve a plate of cod, hake or whiting fried in olive oil.

Eating legumes three times a week, now that we are in autumn, is a good option, avoiding canned fabadas. As well as opting for traditional cuts of meat, which have been prepared by trusted butchers and with them to make dishes from our recipe book such as lamb or pork stew, meat with sauce, meat with peas, meatballs with tomato sauce or almond sauce, baked pork or lamb chops with potatoes... as well as recovering dishes such as Menorcan stew, boiled potatoes with beans, lentils, chickpeas or beans with rice or potatoes, casserole rice, endive, meat or cod raolas instead of frozen and processed croquettes, which we do not know what meat they contain and are loaded with stabilizers and preservatives.

We should buy lettuce, tomatoes, onions, peppers, unpackaged, avoiding plastic and Forespan trays, choosing those that we like the most or that are recommended to us by the person who is in charge of the fruit shop, whether it is a small neighborhood store, a market stall or a supermarket in the Menorcan capital.

Making a weekly meal plan is a good option, and that it is varied, not repetitive week after week, where local produce and fresh produce are the main protagonists.

We will gain in health, and the planet will gain in saving plastics, Forespan containers, and those things that ruin the health of the planet.