DAY2.

By StanleySobari

#Spend a day in the 10th- century village of Banyalbulfar, before heading to Valldemossa, one of the island prettiest towns

METAMORPHOSIS take a day’s rest in Banyalbufar, exploring the town and enjoying the local food and wine. Late, travel by bus to Valldemossa, 12 miles to the east (the GR221 footpath remains closed along this stretch).

I make my way through the vertiginous terraces of Banyalbufar – appearing as though some giant map-maker had drawn the contour lines directly on to the cliff – to a little house that backs against a sheer rock face. This is the home of Senora Francisca. Chatting in the bar of the hotel the night before, hear name came up immediately when I asked about food, and specifically almonds, in Mallorcan culture: ‘Oh, you must talk to Senora Francisca, she’ll tell you everything.’

I wondered if she might not have more pressing matters to attend to, but I was assured not. ‘No, no, she loves visitors!’

And, indeed, Francisca – warned by the village grapevine – welcomes me as though she’d been awaiting my arrival all week. ‘All the old dishes with almonds, yes, I love cooking them, and today I’m going to make a coca de turron,’ she says, smiling, patting my arm. ‘You know, the Arabs were so clever. We owe so much to them. Bunuelos (fried dough balls), and garapinados (sugared peanuts) – all Arabic dishes – and a little hake with toasted almonds on top: yesterday I cooked this for my daughter. Everyday at two o’clock we have lunch together and it is very lovely.’

Her daughter, Isabel, appears. They squeeze orange juice, and mix almond paste, sugar and juice together. ‘Now this is the delicate part.’ Senora Francisca spreads a blob of the mixture on to a circle of rice paper, flattening it with her fingers.

#The precipitous northern coast near Deia watchtowers perched on the cliffs are reminders of the time when attacks from the sea were commonplace

“Let me tell you know how I met my husband,” Senora Francisca says ,as we sit around her kitchen table, pressing the almond paste into flat circles on the rice paper. “When I was young I worked in my parent’s bar in the market in Palma, and twice a week my future husband came to buy food for his boss’s rabbits. Afterwards he would come for a café con leche at our bar. And our eyes would meet…’

She takes the angel hair – a preserve made of gourd – and spreads a layer over the almond paste, then presses two of the rice paper circles together t oseal it.

‘So one day he asked me to go for a walk with him. “No, no!” I said, “I am seeing my girlfriends.” Well, he asked me again, and again, and always I said no. for seven years he courted me – imagine it, seven years!

‘There is only one thing I miss about the old days,’ says Senora Francisca, ‘and that is my husband. The best in the world.’

As I leave Banyalbufar along the twisting, torturous road to Valldemossa, my arms loaded with the squishy coca de turron, I think about patience and the magical transformations wrought by love. The almond tree’s origin in Greek myth occurs when a certain Demophon, on his way home from Troy, falls in love with a princess of Thrace. Then he leaves for Athens, promising to return in a month. The months pass and at last her grief grows so great that she metamorphoses into a tree on the shoreline – an almond tree, all in black. Too late, Demophon returns. As his foot touches the beach, the almond tree bursts into blossom. Thus the almond is sometimes found to symbolize ‘the love that does not alter even with death.

Es Petit, a family-run hotel in the centre of Valldemossa, has the best terrace in town, looking out over a spectacular horseshoe of mountains and meadows. A stay is made especially warm with the friendly attentions of the owners, Gonzala and Margarita (espetithotel-valldemossa.com).

Valldemossa’s Ca’n Molinas bakery specializes in the coca de patata, a feather-light roll. Sample it with a cup of hot chocolate, sitting among the orange trees in the little courtyard, or try the selection of ensaimadas (pastries), including the ensaimada Caranaval, baked during Carnival time in February, topped with pumpkin jam, icing sugar and spicy sobresada sausage (Carrer de Blanquerna 15).