Rachel Laudan

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 [...]

For those coming late to this discussion, we’ve been kicking around possible origins for the Mallorcan and Menorcan ensaimada here, as well as the puzzles of its spread (why did it get to Argentina, Puerto Rica, and the Philippines but skip Mexico) here. Adam Balic isn’t happy with a Moorish origin for ensaimadas I think [...]

Here’s another comment, this time on ensaimadas, a topic that we have touched on here and here.  Thanks to Michael Raffael. I probably missed earlier postings, but it seems likely that ensaimadas evolved on Mallorca during its Moorish occupation. The argument against this is that the Moors didn’t use lard (saim in Catalan), but the [...]