"I try to be in all
A perfect Vigilante."
Apart from similar curious and amusing conventions, with which one has to become acquainted, the early days of housekeeping in Majorca find the foreign resident grappling with a succession of petty difficulties. Besides the differences of language, of coinage, of weights and measures, the dissimilarity of climate renders advisable, even necessary, a mode of living that would be quite unsuited to dwellers in Britain.
To begin with the morning—the customary Majorcan breakfast, which even at the best hotels consists of a glass of coffee, or a tiny cup of very thick chocolate, and tumbler of water taken with a single roll, or an enciamada, is a meal from which the ordinary Briton rises hungry. And one wonders why the Spanish landlord, whose table is so lavishly spread at other meals, should practise a false economy in the matter of breakfast. For, after all, a roll costs only a halfpenny. Dinner is invariably an early function, and an extensive one, for at their two later meals Spaniards make up for their abstinence at breakfast. Between the two o'clock dinner and supper, which is served at any time between eight and ten o'clock, there is a long blank, which the English visitor usually bridges with a cup of tea.
To return to the question of breakfast. At the Casa Tranquila we compromised the matter, and broke our fast on an unstinted quantity of coffee or chocolate and milk, taken with fruit, rolls and butter, and enciamadas. Majorcan breakfast rolls are of two kinds—the ordinary crisp ones, and, what we liked better, a soft species called panecillos de aceite.
Bacon is unknown in Majorca, though ham, of strong flavour and repellent aspect, may be had. It sells at twopence an ounce; and if you wish to astonish the vendor, you can do so by ordering more than a quarter of a pound.
We had been warned that we would be forced to do without butter while in the islands. But matters have progressed—in Palma at least—since the old butterless days. Now the better class grocers sell a peculiarly white butter that is made at Son Servera, near Artá; and almost every provision shop stocks a tinned salt butter that comes from Copenhagen. By the way, the purchaser must not be surprised when asked if it is "pig's butter" he wants. The salesman only means lard.
Cow's milk, another article of diet that used to be scarce in the islands, can easily be obtained. The price charged is almost the same as in London and the milk is much richer.
With the aid of a Spanish dictionary it had been a comparatively simple matter to make out a list of groceries with which to furnish the shelves of our empty larder. But I must confess that a first visit to a butcher's shop made me wonder if Majorcan sheep and oxen differed in construction from British animals, such odd forms did their dead flesh present.
Cold storage is unknown in Palma. The beasts are killed, cut up, and sold almost before they have had time to cool. And, if they were not invariably killed young, their flesh could hardly be so good as it is, the lamb especially being sweet and tender.
A fact that forcibly strikes anyone from a meat-eating country is the small quantities of animal food consumed. Where the wife of a British working-man might spend a shilling on beef, a Majorcan would spend twopence. Naturally the meat is sold in small pieces, and inspection is courted. The east-end butcher's printed command to his customers—"Keep your hands off the beef," would be scorned in the Balearic Isles. If you shop in native fashion, you walk about the shop, turning over and critically examining the pieces exposed within easy reach. When your selection is made you need not invest in any great quantity. If you fancy calf's head, custom does not compel you to buy a half head. You can have a pound, a half-pound, or even a slice.