Food and Drink in Mallorca
Restaurants
and other food outlets in Mallorca are very
much geared to northern European tastes
and international cuisine. If you don’t
like taking risks with food and like what
you know, you will easily find enough to
eat in Mallorca. In the tourist resorts,
you actually have to work quite hard to
find authentic Mallorcan food.
There is a
wide variety of restaurants in Mallorca:
Italian, Chinese, Indian, Thai… even
a Japanese buffet in Puerto Alcúdia.
And this is not to mention all the British
places, German places (for the German tourists,
who are the other main group) and American-style
places.
If you are
interested in trying some Mallorcan specialities,
you’ll find more authentic food in
the less touristy areas inland. Remember
that the locals eat later than we do, particularly
in the evening, so if you want to blend
in, don’t have your dinner before
9 pm. (Personally, I find this gives me
indigestion and bad dreams, so if I’m
going out for a meal in Mallorca I tend
to do lunch.)
Supermarkets in Mallorca
The supermarkets
sell mainly Mallorcan, Spanish, British
and German produce – as well as pasta
and pizza, which everybody seems to like.
In the section
marked Productos Británicos at Eroski,
you can find cereals, English tea bags and
other staples of the British kitchen.
Mallorcan
produce, including sausages and cheeses,
can be found in the section marked Sa Nostra
Terra. Do try the Queso
Mallorquín (Mallorcan cheese).
The Queso Maó,
made in the capital of Menorca, is good
too. Most supermarkets bake every day, so
you can get nice, fresh bread to go with
your cheese.
Supermarket
wine is astonishingly cheap. Eroski’s
own brand, which comes in a tetrapak, is
really not bad and it costs less than a
euro.
Traditional Mallorcan
food
Once you get
off the beaten track, you’ll be able
to sample some real Mallorcan food. Since
Mallorca is a small island with fertile
ground and indigenous black pigs, Mallorcan
cuisine tends to be based around pork, seafood,
vegetables and large amounts of olive oil.
Some specialities
to look out for are:
Pa
amb oli is a staple of Mallorcan
culture (see the book by Tomás Graves
below). It literally means bread and oil,
though it usually involves some tomato as
well, and it’s served pretty well
everywhere you go.
Sobrasada
is a Mallorcan pork salami-style sausage,
with added red chilli pepper.
Tumbet
is layers of potato fried with aubergine,
tomatoes, peppers and garlic.
Arroz
brut literally means dirty rice and
is the Mallorcan paella, generally cooked
with pork and/or chicken, with vegetables.
Ensaimada,
a sweet, rolled pastry, is another famous
Mallorcan speciality. You can find this
easily in the supermarket and it makes a
nice breakfast.
The mayonnaise
(mayonesa) is
particularly good in the Balearics. The
name is said to derive from Maó,
the capital of Menorca.
Mallorcan wine
A lot of the
wine drunk in Mallorca is imported from
mainland Spain but Mallorca also has its
own, growing, wine industry. The best-known
vineyards are in Binissalem,
between Palma and Inca.
Other drinks in Mallorca
Another Mallorcan
speciality is Hierbas,
a liqueur made from herbs.
In terms of
soft drinks, the fresh orange juice (zumo
de naranja) in Sóller is delicious.
Something else worth trying is horchata,
almond milk, which is available in most
bars.
As covered
on the General
Info page, it’s probably best
to drink bottled water. Although the tap
water won’t kill you, it doesn’t
always taste very nice. Look or ask for
agua sin gas (still
water) or agua con gas
(fizzy water).
Coffee and tea in Mallorca
Spanish coffee
is generally excellent, I find. As in Italy,
it is taken quite seriously and you should
have no trouble getting yourself a strong
café sólo
(a small shot, like espresso) or a satisfying
cup of café con
leche (coffee with milk).
If you’re
British, it’s hard to find another
nation that understands tea. You can buy
English teabags at the supermarket but the
water is different and the milk is different
and, on the whole, I would suggest you drink
coffee in Mallorca.
Mallorcan culture and
recipe books
I would recommend
these two books, to give you an idea in
advance of what Mallorcan food and drink
are like and also to allow you to make some
of the food yourself, either while you are
out there or after you come home. |
