The Slow Life

This historic tram connects the small town of Sóller with the Port de Sóller district.

Mallorca is all about sun, sand, and the pleasures of an unhurried life

Tim Johnson

elcoming our small group to their small cooking school, Deborah and Nina smiled and offered each of us an apron. Soon everyone was chopping and kneading while sipping a nice, local rosé.

On the menu that night were two Mallorcan classics: “coca de verduras” (flatbread with greens) and “arros de carxofes i sobrasada” (rice with artichokes and a traditional Mallorcan sausage).

“We cook with simple, humble ingredients, but a lot of flavor,” said Deborah, who owns the cooking school Deborah’s Culinary Island.

She said their priority is to preserve and present the unique cuisine of the Mediterranean island.

“This isn’t Madrid; this isn’t Barcelona; it’s not Seville. People come here, they want a taste of Mallorca,” Deborah said, noting that the meals they make aren’t gourmet by design. “You will never see this in a restaurant—it’s peasant food.”

I told her that I’m a terrible cook, so she assigned me one of the easiest tasks and carefully showed me how to make the dough for coca, a traditional flatbread. I just needed olive oil, a pinch of salt, and flour—the latter made from an ancient grain that almost went extinct and was procured from a local farmer. We mixed it all together, expanding the dough to fit the dimensions of a small rectangular pan.

It’s just one element in what would soon be a feast. Like everything there, this meal was many centuries in the making.

“We were a center of commerce and trade,” Deborah said. “There are so many layers—the Romans, the Phoenicians, the Arabs; they all left their mark.”

Set in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, Mallorca is the largest of Spain’s Balear-

MADRID SPAIN

MALLORCA

Mallorca is the

largest of the Balearic Islands.

Traditionally made for Easter, “panades,” small meat-filled pies, can be found year-round.

ic Islands, an archipelago with three other major inhabited islands—Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera. The collective name comes from Greek and Roman origins, highlighting the fact that soldiers there were always lightly armored and relied on slinging stones for defense, a very effective strategy in many cases.

While many travel there from northern Europe for the simple pleasures of sun and sand, soon after my arrival, a brief drive inland from Palma revealed the diversity of this place. The jagged mountains of the Tramuntana Range rose sharply on both sides of the road, their summits covered in a carpet of cloud, giving a mysterious feel to the whole place.

First, I stopped to walk through the Jardines de Alfabia, a complex of gardens and buildings that date back to the Arab era. The structures range from Moorish to Baroque. Christine, one of the family owners, walked us through the home and stables and past an olive press once powered by donkeys. Today, this is their retreat. Most families in Palma maintain a second summer home—some grand, some simple—most of them just 20 minutes away from their permanent home in the capital.

Back on the road, we climbed up over a mountain pass and descended into a deep, green valley, dropping into Soller, a town tucked there like a hidden kingdom.

“This is like an island within the island,” said Inma, our guide.

Surrounded by the highest peaks on Mallorca, home to both a microclimate and a very calm harbor, this town grew oranges, made olive oil, and produced fabrics. Getting their products back to Palma was arduous, although alleviated by a special railway they built, running over narrow gauge for 28 miles.

Still, they preferred to trade by sea with southern France—and became rich in the process.

“To this day, people still speak with a French accent, and the older folks use a smattering of French words in their Spanish,” Inma said as she walked us to the Plaza de la Constitucion, the grand central square in town.

Sitting down at a sidewalk café for an afternoon cortado, I watched an old tram toot through the square on its way to the port. Inma pointed out the town hall and the bank (“They were so wealthy, they had their own bank!”).

There was plenty more to explore in the following days, driving along the plunging cliffs of the northern coast and walking the winding, vertiginous path to the Cap de Formentor. Jutting out into the Mediterranean Sea, the tip of this long point is surrounded on three sides by water.

On the agenda were village walks and cathedral visits—and a morning touring the museum at the Rafa Nadal Academy. Tennis star Rafael Nadal is from this island and still spends most of his time off-tour there.

But the memory that will endure is sitting down to dinner after a couple of hours of cooking back in Palma at Deborah’s place. The coca bread was baked, the stew was complete and steaming, another round of wine was opened and ready to go, and the stories flowed faster than the vino. We ate and drank like Mallorcans and, maybe, for just that moment, we became Mallorcans, enjoying each other and some great island traditions. 

Tim Johnson is based in Toronto. He has visited 140 countries, across all seven continents.

1.2

MILLION

people live on Mallorca, while 400,000 call the metro area of Palma home.

If You Go

Getting Around:

Especially in Palma, Mallorca offers a solid system of public transportation. But if you’re looking to explore beyond—say, on the rugged northern coast—a rental car is recommended. Stay: Located right in the heart of Palma’s old town, Hotel Sant Jaume sits between a Gothic church and a 14th-century Baroque convent. A luxury hotel strung along one of Mallorca’s most spectacular stretches of coastline, the St. Regis Mardavall offers spectacular opportunities to soak up the Mediterranean sun.