Considering it is mostly an American tradition, I was surprised about how popular Halloween is in Ibiza. For the past two weeks, Can Raspalls has focused on preparing Halloween decorations in art classes; from bats made out of toilet rolls, to woollen spider webs spun around sticks. The children got very excited about the idea of pumpkins and ghosts, talking about their disfraz (fancy dress) and truc o trato (trick or treat.) And it wasn’t only the children. I was invited to a small Halloween party with Marisol and her friends, who went to great lengths to decorate the house and make themselves up for the night. (Their make-up was inspired by the Mexican día de los muertos- day of the dead) During the evening, numerous groups of children came to the door dressed up, demanding chuches (sweets.) Clearly Halloween is taking off in Spain, as celebrations are apparently becoming more widespread every year.
However, traditionally, this time of year is celebrated differently. Todos los Santos (All Saints Day) is on the 1st of November, a national holiday, and is considered a time for remembering the dead. (Normally including a visit to the cemetery) To mark the day, in Ibiza the tradition is to make panallets, sweet nutty treats, and buñuelos (deep fried doughnuts with an aniseed flavour.) I was invited to make panallets with a group of girls who I do after school English lessons with. We arrived at a very Ibizan style house; a spacious white bungalow in the countryside, overlooking the mountains and the sea. It was on a large piece of land which also included the grandparents and aunt’s houses. (Family is never far!) In the kitchen, the mums were busy preparing the ingredients.
Panallets are made from boiled and mashed sweet potato, almond flour and sugar, bound together by egg yolk. Rolling the mixture into balls was a pretty sticky process. Each was then coated in egg white and either crushed almonds or pine nuts. When a tray was ready, they were left to bake in the oven for 10 minutes. The end result was a sweet ball of nutty marzipan style dough. They were yummy but very dense, and you could only indulge on a few. (The mums also made alternatives with coffee and banana, but the traditional ones are always with nuts) Apparently the recipe is unique to Ibiza and has been made by families for years. It was great fun to make them, I just hope the tradition will continue and not be drowned out by anglicised Halloween festivities.
La Buena Vida 