Ensaïmadas: A Mallorcan Testimony
Ensaimadas are the utterly delicious coiled flaky pastries made of wheat flour and lard, and found in Menorca (which I have visited) and Mallorca (which I have not).
How did these two little islands in the Mediterranean come to have these pastries and when, what are the connections with the series of invaders (including Muslims and Brits) who took the islands, what happened to them when local people migrated to mainland Spain or the Americas?
Please just enter “ensaimadas” under search on my website and you will find a dozen posts about all this.
Then Xisca Pou Giménez,from Mallorca, but now living in Mexico, sent me these comments.
Ensaïmades are, yes, very difficult to do technically, not a single person makes them at home, never. My grandmother, who is a superb dessert maker, once made one at home because the women of her generation still know the technique and she wanted to show the whole process to my sister and I. I was amazed, very difficult.
As for the “migration” changes… There is this urban legend about mallorquinian pasteleros that tried to do them in “the peninsula” (the name of the rest of Spain for people from the islands) and they couldn’t “probably because of the differences (consistency and composition) in the water” (?). I guess the problem, as you suggest, is rather that people outside the “tradition’s core” are soon discouraged by the technical difficulties.
Many people from Mallorca migrated to Argentina. One of my grand-mother’s best friends and her husband set up a pastelería in a city where many people from my villlage (Felanitx) settled (San Pedro, in the Buenos Aires province). They managed to live extremely well selling ensaïmadas! They had the best pastelería in town.
What distinguishes a real ensaïmada from the one you found in Buenos Aires that day (or the ones you find in Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico, in pastelerías founded by people from Mallorca—”La Bombonera”, “La Mallorquina”— [is] that [they], for some reason (price? health risks?) have turned away from the original recipe.
The fact is that, to make the real ones, you have put enough saïm over the almost transparent dough that you afterwards roll and then put down in a caracol shape. That “causes” the inside layers, the essence of the ensaïmada.
When you see the amount of saïm they put on there, you remember your heart and arterias and start eating them less :)! But is is difficult because they are truly delicious.
Thanks Xisca!
