Menorcan cuisine refers to the typical food and drink of Menorca.

Menorca is a rocky island in the Balearic archipelago in Spain, consisting of eight municipalities. Featuring a Mediterranean climate, the weather is milder in the south while in the north there are strong winds all year round. Marine salt, carried by the wind to the pastures where cows graze, is what gives the cheese its typical flavour. Seafood is a major element of the island's cuisine, but additionally, there are horses, pigs (used for cold cuts) and cows (the skin of which is used to produce leather, and the milk to produce cheese). Agriculture is small-scale and varied, consisting of typical Mediterranean products. Within this typical Mediterranean cuisine there are also the influences of various invading people, particularly the English, who brought plum cake, puddings, and punch. The rural and marine cuisine is mostly based on greens and vegetables from one's own garden, locally produced meat, and fish and seafood caught in the same day.^[1] Olive oil, although not produced on the island, is also a fundamental ingredient in local dishes.

Menorcan cuisine is generally simple and seasonal. It is based on fishing, particularly longline fishing, and on seafood, especially crustaceans, clams and squid. Fruits and vegetables are cultivated in as much variety as possible, and on a small scale, only for local consumption.

Until the second half of the twentieth century, goats were in such abundance that they were only eaten when there was a famine, caused by spoiled crops or insufficient fishing. Today, they are a luxury. Rabbit is another common element of the cuisine. In the seventeenth century, the English unsuccessfully attempted to introduce deer and hares. Few are left nowadays, but rabbits and various fowl are still hunted or bred.

In Menorca, some of the first written mentions of its cuisine are found in 1891, in notes belonging to Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria, who references some typical cooking but without any recipes. In 1923, Pedro Ballester published De re cibaria which collected a substantial part of popular wisdom and offered detailed anonymous recipes^[2]

Mediterranean crops had a strong influence, encouraging the use of olive oil, wine, legumes and foods pickled in salt. The substratum of Arab culture is also important, as well as additions from French and English cuisine, owing to their respective periods of control over the island in the eighteenth century.^[2]

Even today, when most products can be obtained all year round, Menorca has a seasonal cuisine, which varies ingredients and recipes according to the cycles of the seasons and recognized holidays.^[2]

• Fish: pearly razorfish, sheepsheads, stingrays (wings and liver), scorpionfish, groupers, goosefish, rock fish in general, and salted cod.
• Seafood: mussels, cockles, squid, cuttlefish, octopus, shrimp, scampi, lobster, crab, sea snails.
• Vegetables: vine tomatoes, onion, garlic, chili pepper, aubergine, courgette.
• Legumes: dry white string beans (called guixons on the island).
• Greens: chard, spinach, peas (called fesols on the island), cabbage.
• Fruits: figs, peaches, apricots, pears, grapes, oranges, lemons.
• Nuts: dates, almonds, pine nuts.
• Meat: chicken, rabbit, pork, beef, cold cuts.
• Mushrooms: saffron milk cap, dried mushrooms.
• Other: olive oil, bread, honey, capers, wine, eggs, snails, ricotta, figat (similar to Spanish fig cake and meringue).

With the exception of sobrassada, pork cold cuts made in Menorca are an evolution of the Roman legacy. The slaughter of the pigs, usually undertaken in winter, is called porquejades or porquetjades. Blood is added as an ingredient to some of these products, which gives them a black colour.

Similar to Catalan cuisine, only a few spices are used, but give each product a distinct flavor. Typical spices include black pepper, white pepper, paprika (in sobrassada), anise, cinnamon and salt. Some also add other typical Mediterranean spices such as thyme, rosemary and oregano.

• White botifarra has a grayish, clear brown color, since it doesn’t contain blood, and has the form of the ball that is used for escudella. It is made of meat and other parts of the pig and it is surrounded by a fine membrane. It is generally eaten cooked, usually fried.

• Black botifarra has the same ingredients and species as the white, but also contains pig blood. Its shape is like a fine botifarra. It is often eaten fried with sobrassada and it is sometimes eaten raw.

• Camallot [ca], is a cooked, black, and very greasy sausage, basically the same as Mallorcan camaiot but with less pellets^{[clarification needed]}. It usually contains minced pork, pig’s blood, black pepper, a pinch of paprika and anise. Its appearance is very different from the others, since it is inserted within a pig leg, where the name comes from. It is eaten raw, cut in very fine slices, or cooked.

• Menorcan sobrassada is thinner and less spicy than that of Mallorca.

The Menorcan bakery, pastry, and dessert making incorporates ideas, techniques and products from cultures as diverse as Jewish, Arabic and English. The brief stay of the French in the island served to create the "Gató", according to the technique of the French housewives of the moment, but incorporating almonds in the recipe. From the British the islanders took a taste for puddings, they use Catalan cream abundantly; and they also use meringue in the Italian way, to take advantage of the egg whites to decorate desserts and cakes. This taste for very sweet recipes is shared in common with other neighbours in the southern Mediterranean.

• The "Amargos", or Bitters, are cookies made with egg whites and almonds, similar to Italian Amaretti with almonds, and to the French "Macarons".
• The Buñuelos de Todos las Santos, Fritters of All Saints, are made with soft cheese from Mahon for All Saints' Day, when the "panellets" are also cooked.
• The "Carquinyoli Menorquines", or "Carquinyols de Es Mercadal", which are square-shaped unlike the continental "Carquinyoli"s. They are like chocolate tablets, and have a homogeneous texture, although they are also dry and hard. They are made with almonds, egg white, sugar and flour.
• The "Coca de Tomate de Ciudadela", flatbread with slices of tomato, garlic, parsley, sugar and chopped cookie.
• The "Coca Bamba", or "Coca de San Juan" in Ciudadela, thick and tall in the middle flatbread in the form of snail that contains boiled potato and is eaten for breakfast, as an afternoon snack or with hot chocolate during the local festivities. "Pudin" is made with the "Cocas" that get hard after a few days of non-consumption. With the same recipe for "Coca Bamba" are also made individual round small Cocas, or "Coquitas", covered with apricots, cherries or other seasonal fruit. With the same dough are also made the "Buñuelos de Pasta Bamba" fritters.
• The Crespells of Menorca are flower-shaped cookies with about twelve petals, covered with fine sugar and stuffed either with jam or with a paste made of cottage cheese and lemon. They have a round hole in the middle to see what they are stuffed with. In the other Balearic islands "Crespells" are very different.
• The Crespellets or "Crespellines" are dry, round, large and thin cookies with a toothed edge.
• The "Cuscussó" has the appearance of a loaf of bread covered with candied fruit and pine nuts, like a "Coca de San Juan". The dough is made with Catalan style rustic bread, which is soaked in water with sugar; almonds are added, cinnamon, lemon peel, etc. And then it is kneaded again.
• The "Ensaimada" is made both in Mallorca and in Menorca.
• The "Formatjades de Requesón" are sweet "Formatjades" stuffed with a mixture containing cottage cheese and lemon peel.
• "Alayor" cookies are a kind of round bun with a "closed hole" in the middle. The dough has a bit of anise in it. They are eaten mainly at breakfast and as an afternoon snack, dunked in milk. They can be opened in half and spread with jam or honey. They can be soft or hard inside, we can know depending on the appearance of the outer surface layer.
• "Gató" is a kind of cake where the flour is replaced with chopped almonds.
• The "Macarrones de la Ciudadela" are small white cookies made with egg white, lots of sugar and sometimes also bits of almonds. They have a six-pointed flower shape.
• "Orelletes", which are pronounced "oran" in Menorca,^[23] are fried dough. They are thin, irregular and crisp, aromatised with muscat wine and served with warm honey.
• Menorcan "Pastissets", in Menorca are five or six-petalled flower-shaped cookies, covered with fine sugar and made with lard, flour, egg, sugar, lemon zest.
• "Pudin de Requesón Menorquín", or Menorcan cottage cheese pudding; with Alayor cookies and traditionally garnished with raisins and pine nuts.
• Pudding of Coca Bamba, sometimes made with Ensaimadas; like a custard dessert consistent enough to be cut into pieces.
• Grapes and cheese, a simple dessert.
• The "Rubiol" is a sweet empanada similar to the sweet "Pastisset" of Valencia, typical of Mallorca and Menorca.
• "Rissats", rectangular biscuits decorated with curled waves drawn on the surface with a fork. They are similar to the "Crespellines".
• "Tatis" are like the Catalan "Carquinyolis" but with chocolate.
• "Turrón Quemado, from Mercadal. A peculiar kind of nougat.
• "Tortada", a cake made of chopped almonds, is frequent in the Spanish gastronomy, which in Menorca has the particularity of being usually covered completely with burnt egg yolk and meringue, and sometimes also sugar. This decoration is very typical of the island, and is usually found in the "Monas de Pascua" - Easter cakes, birthday cakes, and "Brazos de Gitano" – Swiss rolls - which, if not filled with Catalan cream, are usually also stuffed inside with egg yolk.

• "Calent", an artisan drink that is infused with herbs, cinnamon, anise and saffron, and it can be drunk hot or ice-cold.
• "Estomagale" is a soft herbs liquor, with a very particular flavor and texture.
• "Frigola" is thyme in Menorca. In the islands, it is also a traditional digestive made with thyme flowers.
• "Gin de Menorca" comes from the British presence on the island in the 18th century. The Xoriguer distillery, which produces the well-known Gin Xoriguer, is located in the port of Mahón.
• "Licor de Rosas". Liquor of roses, is a liquor of Greek origin that was brought to the island by Greek workers and merchants in the eighteenth century and that in Menorca is served in the baptisms.^[24]
• "Pellofa", gin with lemon skin and a little siphon.
• "Pomada", gin with lemon juice.
• The Menorcan "Ratafia" is made by soaking herbs from the island in Aguardiente for eight days, it has lemon bark, green walnut, carnation, nutmeg and cinnamon in it. Other liquors are also made with Mahón chamomile, orange or lemon flower, etc.^[25]
• "Sengri", which is a kind of hot punch with aromatised wine, dating from the time of the British presence in the eighteenth century. In spite of the similarity of the word, it has nothing to do with the sangria.
• Wine has been produced in Menorca since time immemorial. Currently, there are four wineries: Viña Sa Cudia, Viñas Binifadet, Ferrer de Muntpalau and the Bodega Vino de s'illa in Alayor, which have the distinctive name of "Wine of the Land of the Island of Menorca" and have obtained international distinctions.
• The "Malvasía" began to be produced in Menorca when commerce started with ancient Greece, especially in Alayor and San Luis, but later it was lost. Since 2005, it has been cultivated again with vines from Corsica, which has similar geological and climatic features to those of Menorca.^[26]
• Fruit liqueurs. They are made by macerating the fruits in brandy.

CuinaArt Menorca is a gastronomic fair that is celebrated every April since 2007 as a showcase for Menorcan products. It consists of exhibitors, debates, tastings, conferences, etc. It is aimed at all types of public.