"Every now and then, a puchera is placed on the table. With this apparently Spanish name, on Mallorca they refer to a dish consisting of white beans cooked in a broth made from pig bones, butifarra, camallot and sobrasada sausage, squash and, at times, potatoes. Common everywhere is a dish called sopa de pa cuit (literally, “cooked bread soup”), consisting of bread boiled in water with oil, salt and a bit of garlic, adding an egg at times.
In spring, a special favorite is asparagus (espàrrecs) soup. To make it, parsley and onion are fried in a pot; they add water and, as soon as it begins to boil, they add the asparagus and let them cook until they’re soft. Lastly, they add some eggs. Everything is then served on top of slices of bread.
Amongst the most common soups on Mallorca is one made with dry broad beans which, without the shell, are cooked in water which they change after two hours. They then add pieces of squash, some rice and bring it to boil again. This soup is called fava parada and has some variants, adding fat or butifarra sausage.
Needless to say, people of greater means also eat soups that we are familiar with in the rest of Europe. Bulli is a type of stew based on meat and vegetables and is usually accompanied with tomato sauce or pork fat. Principi generally consists of an estofat (stew) made with veal, beef or lamb. Then there are other meats or fish, the latter preferably on days of fasting, especially cod stew.
For dinner, people who enjoy certain economic status generally have sopes amb col, caldera de peix, scrambled eggs with tomato (ous manats), omelets with tomato and peppers, meat or fish stews and, in the right season, green beans with potatoes, onions and dressed with oil. Ocasionally, green beans are substituted with baby broad beans.
One of the most favored dishes for lunch and dinner is broad beans cooked with lard, fat and butifarra sausage; if served at dinner, this dish is generally accompanied with a part of the broth from lunch’s bulli. Another very common dinner is fried fish with pepper and accompanied by a tomato and garlic sauce.
Turkey (indiots and pollastres rostits) are accompanied at times with sweet fillings and accompanied with potatoes and pig fat. They are conserved to serve as the main dish at Christmas and other especially important festivities. This is generally the case amongst both rich and poor, the latter unable to forego this custom. Those with greater economic means add porcella rostida to the indiot rostit. By contrast, those who can’t afford the luxury of turkey, make great efforts to at least have a capon, whether male or female (capó gall or gallina).
Rabbits and hares are also highly praised, generally cooked with rice and a bit of ham or pork (llom). This dish is known as arròs amb llebre (“rice with hare”). If eaten along with the animal’s blood, it’s known as arròs brut (“dirty rice”)."
Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria. Las Baleares por la palabra y el grabado. Majorca: General Part. Ed. Sa Nostra, Caja de Baleares. Palma de Mallorca. 1982.
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