They say that Menorcans have a sweet tooth, "llaminers" is the word we use, and Christmas and New Year's holidays are surely the sweetest that we celebrate with an endless number of cakes, tarts, nougats and pastarral where almonds are the protagonist, as well as other small delicacies such as coconut balls, egg yolks, tocinillos de cielo, stuffed dates and others that fill tables and festive desserts with a range of colours and shapes that dress up each home around a gastronomic table that is a reason for families and friends to meet and reunite.

Pastarral

In Menorca, marzipan is called "pastarral" or "Royal pasta" and, as in the rest of the state communities, it is one of the typical Christmas holiday dishes where each house has its own recipe and the proportions of almonds, egg whites, lemon zest and whether or not they contain vanilla, cinnamon and other homemade secrets will vary slightly.

Glaçat or Confitura

With the pastarral, both in Menorca and in the rest of the communities and countries where marzipan is one of the protagonists of the Christmas tables, figures are made and these in Menorca are called "glaçat" or "confitura".

The name "glaçat" clearly comes from the royal icing with which these heart-shaped, fish-shaped, guitar-shaped, pillow-shaped or diamond-shaped figures are covered, which are of different colours - due to the icing - where the most traditional on the island are pink, white... Although as a child I also remember the green figures, which also have white or pink icing filigrees on top, and which are one of the most striking creations that we bring to the gargantuan Christmas dessert table.

This custom of covering marzipan figures with icing in Menorca could be English, from the 18th century with the British domination of the island and, possibly before that, the figures of pastrral, which is also the paste with which panellets are made when they do not contain potato or sweet potato, could have been covered with jam as the preparation of All Saints does, and hence the name of jam was still maintained, which is how these figures of pastrral are also called, and more so in the peasant part.

A preparation with history

This preparation is perhaps one of the oldest of the Christmas holidays; in fact I have found recipes for pastrral in the recipe books of Can Salort, Can Saura, Ca n'Squella, as well as in the notebooks that mothers prepared for their daughters before they got married and started their own family, to continue preparing the family cuisine.

Pastarral rolls

In addition to the "glaçat" or confitura, in the Ciutadella area they also make pastarral rolls, which are part of the Christmas desserts and are circular in shape, like a roscón, but four fingers in size. There are also those who, in addition to chopped almonds, sugar and lemon peel, I have found recipes that add eggs, others potatoes, others cinnamon... but all of them passed through the meat mincer, with a special nozzle very similar to the one used to make curly biscuits, and after resting for a day they are baked.

I have also seen in the recipes that to make the rolls there are those who made the pastry and left it to rest for between five days and a week, to then make the rolls, which as we have indicated, were left to rest for a whole day on the baking sheet.

Nowadays, pastarral rolls are one of those preparations in danger of disappearing and there are fewer and fewer bakeries and pastry shops that make them.