Santanyí holds a wonderful market every Wednesday & Saturday; since I usually work on Wednesdays, I try to go on Saturday whenever I’m home (meaning: the few weekends I don’t spend travelling). I live a 5-minute walk away from the center of town, where I buy my fresh fruits and veggies, snack on bunyols and rubiols, and chat with the people who work at the market stalls.
New favorite breakfast (and anytime) pastry: Rubiols de brossat. These are sweet, breaded pastries filled with “brossat,” a type of soft, sweet cheese curds. My favorites are flavored with cinnamon.
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| Rubiols |
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| Here’s a random picture of somebody eating mató, the Catalan (from Catalunya) version of brossat, drizzled with honey. |
New favorite lunch/dinner/anytime snack: Llonganissa: another yummy kind of sausage, filled with peppercorns. Spain is big on sausage: when I was visiting Becca in Cáceres, I tried two kinds I’d never heard of before (morcilla and one that started with a p), and I’m sure there are dozens more that have escaped my attention. My favorite snacking-and-tapas sausage is llonganissa, which is cured, meaning all you have to do to make a fabulous lunch is buy a hunk of extra-cured Mahonés cheese, a loaf of spongy multi-grain bread, a long piece of llonganissa, and a bottle of good red wine,
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| Llonganissa |
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| Sa Rota by Bodegas Bordoy: my new favorite (pricey: €7!!) wine |
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| Formatge maó; cheese from Mahón, on Menorca |
and head for the mountains or the beach to have a picnic. All of the food items are available at my local market; the beach is a 4K bike ride away, and the mountains are only accessible by car, so I visit them when someone comes to visit me (like Katelyn; we hiked up to the monastery La Trapa and picnicked among the goats).
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| From left to right: Katelyn snacking with a view over the bay of Sant Elm; shaggy-haired goat |
When Melissa and her sister, Sarah, came to visit me this weekend, we of course went to the market, which is starting to get livelier and livelier as summer (and tourist season) approaches. We sampled all of the amazing cheese from the cheese man and bought honey from the oldest lady at the market, who sells her preserves and produce using an antique balance and a slow, patient way of paying attention to every item and customer. We bypassed one of my favorite stands—the lady who deep-fries fresh bunyols right before your eyes—because we had already indulged ourselves on rubiols (see above).
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| Bunyol: typical Mallorcan donut, made with pastry flour, potatoes, lard, and a whole lot of sunflower oil. Oh, and doused with sugar, of course. |
I usually buy a half-dozen bunyols every week, and munch them as I wander around the market.
The market itself has several different sections: I spend most of my time at the fresh fruit and veggie stands
and at the artisanal cheese and meat stands.
A lot of the local boutiques put out a table on market day, and there are usually several booths selling flowers:
There are also several jewelry stands, stands with kitchen & bath items, tables full of random plastic knickknacks, and tons and TONS of booths selling knock-off sunglasses and leather belts and purses. Walking through the various booths, you hear all sorts of languages, from Mallorquín to Spanish to German, French, and English, to Arabic and various African languages spoken by some of the sellers. There is some heckling, but generally, if you take the time to talk to each seller about his or her wares, and be a pleasant, open-minded person, the market is one of the most wonderful, community-oriented events in town.
The market takes up the main square in front of the church, a large square to the north of the church, and several side streets. The main square looks like this on a sunny day:
And the square on the north of the church looked like this during Sant Antoni (I don't have a decent picture of it in the daytime)
And here's the main square on a cold & rainy market day:
yum!
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