WHEAT CULTIVATION IN MENORCA

Many varieties of wheat were sown in Menorca, although the best known was Triticum sativum, with numerous variants, the most widely used of which was the so-called xeixa gorda, light in colour and large-grained, already documented in the 14th century. Xeixa pequeña (Small spelt) was also sown, also light in colour but with small grains, which was more suitable for sowing in shallow soils. Other well-known wheats when they were sown on our island were caña azul (blue cane), which arrived around 1924, and was quite productive, but the grain ears bent over and were broken at their base by the wind. In the 19th century, wheat from Algiers was introduced and after the Civil War, red wheat began to be sown, with good results. The shift towards livestock and milk production experienced by Menorcan peasantry meant that wheat fields were converted into grass fields for cows and cheese production.

In the past, when wheat was grown in Menorca and the mills were in full production, the following flours could be found:

– Fine flour or ‘flor de harina’ was the finest of all, and was used to make the San Juan ensaimadas, the coques bambes, the muffins… It was mixed with normal flour to make bread. In recipes where fine flour is used, we can use weak flour. To make ensaimadas it was customary to mix the two flour types.

– Normal flour was used for bread and also for making cocas, formatjades, pastries and other baked goods. It would be the current strong flour.

– White prims were used to make coca rossa, a very hard whole meal bread not usually kept for more than a day and was eaten almost instantly.

– Prims that were mixed with bran to feed animals such as chicks and chickens.

Old yeast

To make bread, once the flour had been obtained, the ‘artesa’ was used, a piece of furniture in the shape of a table made of wild olive or holm oak wood, with a door at the top that led to the receptacle inside which the dough was kneaded and where a small piece of it was always kept in a corner, sprinkled with a little flour on top, which was reserved until the next bread baking was prepared. of bread. This was called old yeast and contained enough fermented flour for the bread to ferment in the following week’s batch. Before storing this portion of dough, it was shaped into a round, like a small bread, and a cross was made on it with a knife.

As Tòfol Capó, a former baker from Ciutadella, explained to us, the old yeast was a leftover from the previous kneading. It was customary to leave it in a bowl, covered with a little flour. The night before it was used, it was soaked in water. The next day, the bread was made by adding the old yeast, which was what made the dough rise.

This old yeast used to form part of the dowry given to daughters, so that as soon as they were married, they could start making bread for their new home.

How to make sourdough at home

Take a piece of baker’s yeast the size of a hen’s egg and melt it in a bowl of hot water. Put the melted yeast in a bowl, add a whole egg – both the yolk and the white – a teaspoon of sugar and as much flour as you need.

Knead it, make a ball, put it in a cup and make a cross on top, sprinkle with flour, cover with a tea towel and set aside to make bread, cakes or other preparations that need to rise.

Bep Al·lés is the director and editor of Foodies on Menorca, as well as a specialist in Menorcan gastronomy.