According to a fairy tale from Mallorca which Ludwig Salvator records in his collection of stories, a shepherd boy from the well of Ses Basses was pursued by the Moors, but always seemed to manage to escape them by using his head.

They had already failed to catch him several times and they then cornered him in a cave and told themselves that, this time, they could definitely catch him.

However, the shepherd laughed at them through a hole in the cave, showed them a loaf of bread and explained what he was doing:  “I’m cutting half of it” – and so it went on until in the end he showed them how he had cut all the individual slices.

At that, the Moors lost heart and said “He’s got bread for a fortnight, he won’t come out, and we can’t catch him”.  They went away and never came back.  Since that day, the cave has been called Cova d’escata pa, the Cave of Bread Parts.

Today, pa moreno is traditionally eaten with pa amb oli – a mixture of olive oil, tomatoes and garlic.  Pa moreno is the dark, unsalted bread from Mallorca which compliments the stronger tastes of the other ingredients.  As well as the basic pa amb oli, you can serve it with slices of sobrassada which is a rich, dry-cured saussage from the local porc negre – black pig – spread with paprika.  Mallorcans also created camaiot – a worthy rival for sobrassada.  This speciality food processes pig’s blood, bits of meat, fat bacon, spices and salt into sausage and, if traditionally made, it is pressed into a thick rind rather than a sausage skin.