Lobster and Its Traditional Cuisine (II)

Bep Al·lès/Ciutadella - Lobster with tomato, once a typical dish of the months of July and August, has also disappeared. Grilled lobster is no longer cooked either, which used to be prepared over embers of wild olive or holm oak wood; nor that lobster salad with lettuces or endives from the Canal dels Horts, with white onion and tomatoes from the island, dressed with good oil (extra virgin, what we now call EVOO, first pressing), or the much-missed lobster with wild rabbit or with chicken. And what was once a star dish, still the favorite of the great writer Pau Faner and part of the recipe book of the “Fonda Faner,” where his father was the head chef: boiled lobster served with a mahonnaise sauce made with mortar and pestle.

Unfortunately, few restaurants include on their menus the tasty lobster with onions, fried lobster (without eggs or potatoes), or oven-baked lobster gratinated with garlic and oil. What has been preserved is the lobster stew (not “caldereta”), lobster broth rice and dry rice with lobster, although these are no longer prepared in earthenware pots but in metal pans.

Perhaps this is the task that must be undertaken by institutions, by restaurant business associations, and by groups such as Fra Roger, which should ensure the recovery of the traditional recipe book and set aside other repetitive, perhaps overly innovative and globalized approaches.

We have a great, unique product: a red lobster with special characteristics due to the seabed surrounding our island. We have achieved its quality label, which certifies that it has been caught in Menorca using traditional and artisanal methods. However, we still lack much educational work in traditional cuisine, which is how it will be demanded. Therefore, efforts must be made to recover the roots of our recipe book, the old recipes of fishermen and sailors from the ports, of shoemakers and craftsmen, to give them value, revive them, and return them to restaurant menus, as they were until the 1950s in inns, family restaurants, and especially in homes.

If there is will, it is not a difficult task, because there is written evidence of the recipes. We must also investigate those lost “alchemical” formulas in the cooking of fish and seafood on our island.

Menorca has a unique product and a unique, rich, and distinctive cuisine that must be promoted and protected as intangible heritage. Institutions must not look the other way or encourage foreign trends and fashions. Likewise, efforts must be made to promote our traditional cuisine without complexes, with a special commitment to local products, producers, artisans, and people of the countryside and the sea. We must also begin to better value those who have researched recipes and studied our gastronomy, as well as those platforms that promote it internationally, which unfortunately receive little recognition.