PaneNostro

Daily bread

PaneNostro cares about our food and respects what nature provides.

Author: Joan Ramis Boscana

Photographer: Jaume Oliver

A morning running errands in Palma is the perfect excuse for our feet, which seem to have a will of their own, to guide us to places that our subconscious brings to life from time to time. This is how today we entered a space that has changed its image to make a niche for itself in the plaça de la Quartera: we are talking about Biokalma, a place run by Sònia that has a totally interdisciplinary spirit: workshops, vegan products, therapies, exhibitions... After chatting with her for a while and with the intention of stopping there another day, we went to fulfill one of our morning tasks: to buy bread. After crossing the Plaça Nova de la Ferreria, we stop at the door of PaneNostro, a bakery located in a neighborhood that activates the most alternative life of Palma, which is Sa Gerreria.

When we enter Pane Nostro, we realize that we are in one of the sanctuaries of sourdough. The space is diaphanous, wide enough to house both a store and a workshop. It is there that we see Peio, who is busy preparing the day's preparations so that his customers go home happy. His is a trade he learned from his grandfather, who was also a baker by profession and who taught his grandson everything he needed to know. Peio is in love with sustainability and natural products born in Mallorca, which is why PaneNostro was the first bakery in Palma to receive organic certification. As a good connoisseur of the material he deals with, his bakery works with local flours obtained through the practice of responsible agriculture. Peio is also committed to recovering some varieties of wheat that have almost disappeared, such as blat mollar or blat mort. If this is not love for his occupation, what is it? 

Peio crosses a transparent door that communicates the workshop with the store, and does so with an assortment of breads that he places, one after the other, in their corresponding boxes. He has them of all sizes and colors: blat mort and sesame bread rolls, rice and teff bread, another of wholemeal xeixa with oat flakes... On his advice, we end up choosing a couple of carob and raisin bread rolls that seem to us of a brilliant virtuosity, and we confess to him that the sweets we have in front of us have awakened our gluttony. As he puts a handful of each type in the bag - cocoa and buckwheat coins, whole grain spelt cookies, cocoa and rice cookies - he tells us that at PaneNostro they never sweeten their creations with white sugar, but add panela, dates, apples or carrots. Faced with this healthy revelation, we ask him not to be shy and to continue introducing whatever he sees fit for us.

When we turn around to leave the establishment, we notice that a queue of customers has been lining up behind us. How fortunate are the neighbors of Sa Gerreria, who have found in this master baker someone who manages to teach sourdough workshops, who has no problem explaining to you how agriculture used to be in Mallorca back in the day and who enjoys baking his breads with one hundred percent wholemeal flours. At PaneNostro they care about our food and respect what nature provides.