When S’Àvia (Grandma) Rita dresses up for Christmas: A different tradition

For Quim Lorente, S’Àvia Rita products could be divided into two: the traditional ones and the innovations. And the latter, subdivide into two more: introduced products and modified products. “In the end, the innovations we can make are limited to: or taking products that are made outside and are successful, or making mixes, varying the raw materials of the products”.

And the same goes for Christmas. For example, with the laughs. Currently they also offer whole spelled or cocoa. Modifications “that, as we say, do not lose the essence of what is a laugh. I try that when people eat it, they identify it as such, despite having modified one or more ingredients”.

Anyway, in the case of festivals, this innovation and introduction of new products is perhaps experienced in a more extreme way. “The great variety of pastry that is presented at Christmas really retains few traditional products. The vast majority, even though they have been around for years, are brought in from outside. Here, in Menorca, originally, three ingredients were used: meringue, cream and egg yolk. The rest comes from outside.”

Thus, cakes and sweets that can be found at S’Àvia Rita for Christmas, such as panettone (chocolate, fruit or walnut and raisin), truffles, coconuts, miniature sweets, rosco (cake of kings) , the nougat… “they are the ones that are most successful for the holidays, and the ones that years ago were taken from outside”. Really, therefore, we would be talking, perhaps, of a more current tradition. Tradition because they have long since become an essential part of the Menorcan Christmas, but current because they do not come from the origins of festive pastries on the island.

Of the traditional ones in origin, we can still find bitters, rolls and couscous. But others such as marzipan or carquinyols, no longer. “It depends a lot on demand and how it evolves. In fact, we have stopped making the carquinyols, which used to be a star product at festivals, because people consume them more in the summer.”

And why is this displacement of the original products? “If we talk about traditional products from Menorca for the holidays, we basically focus on couscous, rolls, bitters, marzipan… More rustic, stronger tastes, which nowadays no longer appeal to everyone”, says Lorente. The Menorcan palate, therefore, has evolved, along with that of the outside, and currently there are tastes that we no longer accept in the same way as before.

This has led to the fact that, over time, “they stopped buying marzipan, to the point where we stopped making them”. And whoever says marzipan, says nougat from the queen, or bread from Cadiz. Maybe there are other establishments where they still keep them, but the number of people who consume them is so limited, that it’s almost not worth it anymore. “Traditional products were made with the raw materials we had available on the island. Therefore, as new ones have been introduced, it has been possible to produce different products”.

Today, therefore, of the Christmas tradition, and according to S’Àvia Rita’s experience, it remains, but less and less. Little by little we have been accepting and introducing more culinary creations from outside, which have succeeded in displacing many of those here, for having too strong a taste, which is not made for all audiences. Even so, they try to preserve as many traditional products as possible, to continue offering what is local and, at the same time, the most current and in demand. In a conjunction between tradition and evolution.