The shoemakers’ kitchen

The shoemakers, those of those times, are said to have been a race apart. They were workers, but at times, and true free spirits. They were all expert hunters of rabbits, partridges, thrushes… anglers and longline fishers… hunters of mushrooms, asparagus, snails… And with them their own gastronomy was also born, as is the case with the dishes we will talk about. today.

I can remember the figure of my uncle Toni Marquès “Torrenova, married to one of my grandmother’s sisters and in charge of a shoe factory. In the patio of his house in Ka, which is today Avenida Francesc de Borja Moll, in Ciutadella, he had in mind the patio that overlooked the Canal dels Horts the cages with the rabbits that he raised and some of which he took to sell or ended up in the pot to make rice, stews and other cooking dishes where the rabbit was the protagonist. There he also planted the cabbages, lettuce, and I removed the herbs that I gave to the rabbits. I liked as a child to go see the cages with the babies, to feed them, but as I grew up I also saw that the rabbits were sacrificed, skinned, etc. I think that the first time I saw how he killed one, I didn’t want to try the paella rice that my grandfather Manolo had made, masterfully as always. It’s all experiences and we ended up getting used to it.

In that old, subsistence cuisine, it was very common for the first and second courses to be cooked with a main ingredient, and this is the case. The rabbit, from the field or from a cage, was used to cook the macaroni first and then the rabbit with peppers, with tomato, or with onions -depending on the season- as a second course.

Also on trips to the countryside, or sometimes, if they went to the coast, to the sea, part of the day was dedicated to fishing or going out by boat to cast nets or longlines.

From the coast they fished rock fish with a rod or when it was time, they went to fish for obladas, which were cooked with suquet and the months of November and December were when they went out to fish for squid that would be served stuffed for the Christmas and New Year holidays. of year.

As I have told you, the country rabbit was, perhaps, the favorite meat of the cobblers, and the macaroni with rabbit was reserved for the most special celebrations, such as the “ Estudiantina ” lunch, which came and goes on the Carnival Saturday, and then, after a few weeks, they celebrated their lunch with the donations they had collected. There the menu was those macaroni with rabbit for starter, rabbit with onions for main and for dessert a stick of cream and an orange.

There was also no shortage of macaroni with rabbit on the table for Cincogema (Pentecost Easter), both in the seaside caves and in the little houses in the middle of the hunters’ field, and each cook, each ranch had its recipe, its little secret.

Today, I don’t think there is any restaurant in Menorca that has macaroni with rabbit on its menu, nor will we unfortunately find a rabbit with onions, or with peppers, or with tomato, or rice in rabbit casserole with artichokes, and Let’s not talk about rabbit with almond or hazelnut sauce… We have perhaps lost our culture of gastronomic rabbit.