MENORCA. Where time stands still
CULTURE
MENORCA
MENORCA
The urban house
If we set aside the manor homes of Ciutadella and Maó (see the section on heritage), the common homes in the villages and cities of Menorca stand out for being one-, two- or at most three-storey single-family dwellings. They tend to be trast houses (measuring around five metres wide), with a basement, a ground floor - which is where the entryway is located - a living/dining room, kitchen and courtyard. The bedrooms are on the first floor, and on the upper floor (called the porxos) is the attic or golfes. In the oldest houses, the rooms on the ground floor and basement might be covered with groined or barrel vaults. Whitewashing is the most common colour for the walls, and green for the blinds. Many of the windows, especially on the eastern side of the island, tend to be sash windows.The casa de lloc (rural house)
The lloc is the basic unit of farming and livestock on Menorca. The mitgeria system has meant that most farmers are not the owners of the lands they farm, even though oftentimes many generations of the same family have lived at the same estate. In some places only the farmer family's home can be found, while in others the owners, the lords of the lloc, have their summer home close by or on the upper floor.Rural homes on Menorca are generically known as "ses cases". Their typology is diverse, ranging from the simplest - when there is only the farmer's house - to the most elaborate. They are generally built facing southward in order to make the most of the sunlight and avoid the Tramontana wind. The porch, a portico with arches, acts as a place to distribute the space. The ground floor holds the kitchen, living/dining room and other rooms, some of which might be related to the jobs on the estate (cheese making, for example). The farmer and his family's bedrooms are also often on the ground floor, especially when the first floor is occupied by the owners' summer home. The top floor is invariably occupied by the porxos or golfes (attic), which is used for storage. Numerous auxiliary buildings are scattered around the house: coach houses, cowsheds, stables, haylofts, etc., and at times a chapel as well. The architecture on some of Menorca's lordly estates dating from after the 18th century shows Italianate and Neo-Palladian influences.
Gastronomy
Traditional Menorcan fare is quite simple and typically Mediterranean. Some of the most popular dishes are the oliaigua soups and arròs de la terra, a rice dish. Also common are oven-baked dishes, which combine meat and fish with potatoes and tomatoes. Vegetables, too, such as aubergine and courgettes, are often prepared in the oven. Lately the caldereta de langosta, or lobster stew, has become quite famous; this dish is believed to be traditional, although Menorcans rarely eat it. The most common side dish was cheese, which also became quite famour and has its own designation of origin, with the name Maó-Menorca. With regard to sausages, the most important ones are sobrassada (sausage cured with paprika), botifarrons (white and black pork sausage), salsitxa (pork sausage) or carn-i-xulla (cured sausage) and cuixot (ham).Menorcan cuisine also has a rich pastry-making tradition. It features many different types of formatjades (with cheese, curd and meat), a wide variety of savoury and sweet cakes, crespellets (biscuits), pastissets (little cakes), ensaimadas (spiral-shaped pastries that are different to the Mallorcan version and also called coques bambes), and finally amargos and carquinyols (two almond-based sweets).
Menorca produced a great deal of wine in the 18th and 19th centuries, but several epidemics almost totally decimated the vineyards. Recently this tradition is being recovered, and high quality wines are once again being crafted, albeit in small amounts. Menorcan liqueurs are quite famous, especially the gin typical of the island, which is regarded as the legacy of the British, although production was minimal in the 18th century.
Popular festivals
Horses are the indisputable stars of Menorca's popular festivals. All the villages on the island hold festivals for their patron saints with the organisation of a retinue on horseback, the qualcada (parade) made up of the junta de caixers and a varying number of riders. The junta de caixers represents the old strata of society: the caixer capellà or capellana, the caixer fadrí (called the sobreposat in some villages), which is the one who carries the pendant or flag, and the caixer pagès and the caixer casat. The caixer batle, a representative of the Town Hall, perhaps the mayor himself except in the case of Ciutadella, presides over the parade. The retinue is always preceded by the fabioler, who rides an ass and plays the drum and the fabiol (flute), heralding the coming of the parade.The ritual of the festivals (with the exception of Ciutadella) is as follows: the evening before the festival the fabioler gathers together the qualcada, which, after going through the streets of the village several times, heads towards the church to say the night prayer. Afterwards, the qualcada heads to the main square, where people make the horses jump to the sound of the band, which is playing the Jaleo "El postillón de la Rioja" (actually the fragment from the zarzuela, whose mood is perfect for the festival), among other songs. The morning of the next day, the qualcada once again gathers together, the Jaleo is repeated and it ends with the mass of the caixers in the parish church. In some villages, horse races take place at sundown.
The most important festivals on Menorca are the Saint John festivities in Ciutadella, which are held on the 23rd and 24th of June and the preceding Sunday (a day called Diumenge des Be), which has an extremely elaborate ritual. Here the qualcada is made up of a representative of the nobility, the caixer senyor, who presides over the retinue; the caixer capellà or capellana; two caixers pagesos; the caixer menestral casat; and the caixer fadrí, who carries the flag. Here, too, the qualcada is preceded by a fabioler, but in Ciutadella the tune that this character plays is much different than in other towns.
On Diumenge des Be, the junta de caixers goes through the streets of Ciutadella, visiting the families that contributed horses to the festival. They are accompanied by a man dressed in skins who carries a large lamb on his shoulders. This man represents Saint John the Baptist, and the lamb portrays the Lamb of God, Christ. At two in the afternoon on the 23rd, the evening before Sant Joan (Saint John's Day), the horses begin to withdraw. After celebrating the caragol of the Born, the qualcada heads to the hermitage of Sant Joan de Missa.
Once back in the afternoon, the festival continues through the ancient streets of Ciutadella (the caragols of Ses Voltes and of Santa Clara). In the morning of the next day, the qualcada once again goes out after eight. In Pla de Sant Joan, near the port, the horsemen practice the horse games they will play in the afternoon. Afterwards the caragols of Ses Voltes and Santa Clara are done once again. At midday is the mass of the caixers in the cathedral. At nightfall, the qualcada celebrates the most spectacular peak of the festival, the games: s'ensortilla, trencament de les carotes and córrer abraçats. The festival ends in the wee hours of the morning, once again with the caragols of Ses Voltes and Santa Clara.
Apart from the festivals of the patron saints, which fill the entire summer from late June (Saint John) until mid-September (Saint Nicholas, held in the Toro sanctuary), the most important festival is Saint Anthony Abad (17th of January), which in Ciutadella commemorates the Christian conquest of Menorca by Alphonse the Liberal in 1287. The peak of this festival is the Procesió dels Tres Tocs (Procession of the three knocks). Yet another important event is Ciutadella's solemn commemoration of its resistance against the Turkish invasion of 1558, which is held every year on the 9th of July.
Dances and glossat
The popular Menorcan dances are the fandango, the bolero and the jota. The dancers are dressed in peasant clothing typical from the 18th and 19th centuries. The instruments that accompany the dancers are the guitar, the guitarró, the mandola and castanets. Traditionally, the dances take place during the popular festivals, including the feasts of the patron saints of the different villages, as well as family and peasant festivals, such as the porquejades (slaughters) and mesurades (last festival in the farming year where the harvests were measured).The glossat is another fascinating example of popular culture on Menorca. It consists of two or more glosadors who, accompanied by a guitarist, engage in a true verbal dialectic battle that is rhymed and sung to the beat of the guitar. Skill in the glossat lies in improvisation, and the subjects that they cover are extremely diverse and can even include allusions to individual people.
