You Are What You Grow: Mallorca's fairs

They haven't been celebrating the almond for long in Santa Margalida. Today is only the fourth of the town's almond fairs, an appendage to celebrations for Sant Mateu, themselves an add-on to the La Beata fiestas, which only ended a fortnight ago. Sant Mateu, aka Matthew, is something of a saintly afterthought, picking his way through the shattered pitchers of the Mallorcan home-grown saintliness of La Beata in staking a claim to be remembered.

Almonds are not unique to Santa Margalida. Indeed it is probably fair to say that they are more associated with land to the south, such as in and around Marratxi and Calvia. Where the latter is concerned, the almond was given an honourable mention during the opening address for the fiestas in Santa Ponsa. As part of the town's gastronomy, its role in pastries was applauded, while other produce from Calvia was also referred to - aubergines, for example.

Nevertheless, the almond has long featured in the rural economy of Santa Margalida, and the fair is indicative of its importance to this economy, while its introduction in 2012 was more than simply the creation of another event in the town's social calendar. It was also a means of increasing awareness of threats to the local almond business that were coming from drought and fungus. The fair was a way of reminding relevant authorities that the almond is a precious crop for Mallorca and that it required rather more attention than it had been getting, with so much more attention having been given to an expansion of olive production at the expense of the almond.

There will, inevitably, be a part of the fair dedicated to almond-based gastronomy. Most typically associated with pastries and cakes and also of course ice-cream - Mallorca's indigenous ice-cream manufacture arose more than two centuries ago because of the almond - it also finds its way into other types of cuisine.

The versatility of Mallorca's crops has become increasingly evident because of the number of fairs that are devoted to agricultural production in individual towns and villages and so also to the type of dish that comes from these crops. The produce of the land has become the theme for many a fair. So much so that a town or village is defined by what it grows or at least for what it is principally noted for growing. Hence, Sa Pobla is the town of the potato people; Soller is orange town and orange folk; Binissalem is "grapesville". There are others: Caimari is olives and especially olive oil, Porreres is apricots, Lloret is figs, Vilafranca melons, Muro pumpkins.

But this highlighting of specific crops obscures the fact that there are, of course, many others. In Muro, as an example, the pumpkin fair is a bit of a contrivance. Yes, there are pumpkins grown but they are not the principal crop or anything like it. Muro shares with Sa Pobla an earth for vegetable production that gives rise to, among others, the cabbage and the artichoke. So valuable is local artichoke farming that the Guardia has had in the past to be pressed into service and undertake artichoke watch: thieves were nicking artichokes in the dead of night.

Certain towns, however, are defined by more than one main crop. Sa Pobla is one the best examples. While it is Potato Central in Mallorca, it is also Rice Central. They've dabbled with theming events along rice lines in Sa Pobla, always aware though of the sensitivities of its potato identity, the potato having begun to assume importance for the local economy roughly a hundred years before rice production in Albufera started in any meaningful fashion. Care needs to be exercised when the populace identifies so much with one product of the land, but nevertheless the town hall is to embark on a rice gastronomy route - "arròs pobler" - as a means of attracting more visitors to the town.

So, the fruit and veg-themed fairs reveal town and village folk who are what they grow, but among all these various crops there is one that seems to be missing and it is one right at the centre of traditional, peasant cooking. There is, as far as I am aware, no cabbage fair. Might the cabbage offer, therefore, a niche fair theme for town halls on the lookout for giving a boost to their fair calendar? Or maybe it's the lot of the humble cabbage that it doesn't lend itself to a diversity of gastronomy that other crops do. In which case, what about the equally humble carrot? Any takers? The carrot does, after all, share something in common with Santa Margalida and its almond. Cake.