Coca payesa, uno de los platos más tradicionales de la isla.
The fact that Formentera is an island clearly affect its gastronomy, because basic ingredients for dishes are those that the island can produce, i.e.:
Meat: chicken, pig, goat, sheep, rabbit, dove, etc.
Game: rabbit, partridge, thrush, starling, dove, hedgehog, etc.
Fish: sirvia, serrano, San Pedro, grouper, roja, morayeel, conger eel, monkfish, vaca, pomfret and almost all the species that can be fished.
Legumes: beans, broad beans, peas, guixes, etc.
Vegetables: tomatoes, parsley, egg plants, etc. Tubers: beetroot, potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, onion, etc. Fruits: figs, oranges, pears, khakis, blackberries, watermelon, melon or nuts like almond, etc.
The fact that almost all these crops have a self-consumption nature assures the maximum quality of the products which the cookery of Formentera uses, which have a clear direct effect on the final result of every dish. It is a strong flavour cookery with a clear predominance of vegetables and fish and an essential presence of olive oil.
At every good table in Formentera, the following products are considered essential: olives, pan payés (a type of traditional brown bread) and ví pages (local wine), a full-bodied wine with a strong flavour and high alcohol content.
Pan Pagés, cocido en horno tradicional de leña, en el momento de sacarlo.
Traditional dishes join meat or fish with vegetables in a very balanced way. Fish rice, both dry (paella) or soggy (sea rice) is a dish of great gastronomic interest. The same interest has the guisat de peix (fish stew), which, served with good alioli all over, is the star of Formentera's cookery. Meat stews bears comparison with the aforementioned dishes and so do the bollit, rice with meat, roast or charcoal-grilled meat. In matançes (slaughter) season, you can find heavy dishes that the inhabitants of Formentera only prepare once a year, i.e., when they have all the necessary ingredients: pig meat. "Arroç de matançes" (slaughter rice), "bollit d'ossos" (stew containing boiled bones and "sa frita de matançes" (slaughter fried meat) are always present in a celebration like this one. Furthermore, in "matançes" season, Formentera islanders prepare the cold meat that will be at their table during the whole year: sobrasada, botifarra, camaiot, etc.
As far as baking is concerned, we have to mention the flaons (cheese cakes with spices and herbasana) are prepared in Easter; the bunyols, elaborated with a pastry based on flour, eggs, sugar and some orange juice (some people do also add grinded potatoes) that finally will be fried; and the orelletes (usual pastry with sugar). These are the most important desserts when talking in terms of fame and success. You can also find the greixonera, which is a mixture of bread, milk, eggs and burnt sugar, all cooked in the oven as if it were a cake.
El "Peix sec" en pleno proceso de desecación.
Finally, we can speak about gastronomic traditions like "peix sec" or dry fish, commonly used in salads, combined with "besqüit" (stale bread specially cooked).
And how could we forget typical dried fruit of the island like figs, dried in the sun during a certain period of time until they are just rightly dried and can be considered to be jam. These are costumes that, unfortunately, just the oldest inhabitants of the island still practice and preserve so that they will do not get forgotten and so that any visitor or islander can still enjoy them.
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