Tempt Your Taste Buds in Menorca

Taking a villa break on the island of Menorca will ensure you will be able to sample a great selection of all the wonderful food that is available. Many of the traditional dishes stem from the sea, as you’d expect from an island destination, however this is not the end of the story.

The Savoury

This Balearic island has a long fishing heritage and many of the traditional dishes that you will see on menus emanate from this industry. Every day fishing boats still bring their catches into the harbour towns and villages and the products they catch are well used in the island’s restaurants.

Of course paella is found on most menus along with another wonderful seafood dish called caldereta de llagosta (Lobster stew), which will please any lover of the bounty from the sea. This delicious stew is widely available but is a particular feature of the cuisine in the fishing village of Fornells.

Fish such as tuna, grouper and monkfish are often served grilled with mayonnaise. In fact, mayonnaise is said to have been first created in the Menorcan town of Mahon for the Duke of Richelieu, who then took the recipe back to France.

For the more adventurous gourmand, unusual dishes can also be found on a villa break. Peus de cabrit are sea dates, cooked with sherry and parsley; cornets are sea snails; and arca pelosa are goose barnacles. Slightly less unusual are escupinyas, made from clams that are bread crumbed, flavoured with parsley and garlic and baked, or alternatively eaten raw with lemon.

For meat eaters the island offers a good range of traditional sausages, including the brightly coloured sobrasada, which is a pork sausage flavoured with paprika; camot, a black sausage flavoured with fennel; and carn i uxa, which are made from lean meat and bacon. All the local sausages have a high meat content of around 99%. Lamb and suckling pigs are often roasted to provide the Spanish equivalent of a Sunday lunch.

Aubergines play a large part in local island cuisine and are often stuffed with meat, rice, tomatoes and spices. However vegetarians are also catered for with a dish of Moorish origins, where aubergines are filled with a mixture of onions, garlic, parsley and tomatoes.

The Sweet

Menorcans, like most Spaniards, are known for their sweet tooth and anyone visiting the island on a villa break will be surrounded by wonderful sugar-filled treats. The island even has its own ice cream, La Menorquina, which is deliciously smooth and creamy. There are many traditional sweet pastries and ensaimadas are a popular breakfast dish. These are an unusual spiral shaped pastry usually served with pumpkin jam or custard and, when accompanied by hot chocolate, make the perfect breakfast for the sweet-toothed. Almond flavoured treats are also popular and amargos and carquinols, a macaroon type pastry, are both great examples of these.

Whatever your food tastes you are sure to find some wonderful dishes to try whilst on a villa break in Menorca. For the chefs amongst you, trying to recreate these dishes when you return home will ensure that the memories of your holiday will stay with you.

Brenda Jaaback is the Managing Director of Bartle Holidays. They can provide you with a wide selection of superb accommodation for your villa break on Menorca. Bartle Holidays makes no warranty as to the accuracy of information contained in this article and excludes any liability of any kind for the information.

Writer and Online Marketing Manager in London.