Ontinyent, industrial today but farming in the past, keeps a cuisine closely tied to the land. Besides its rice dishes and sausages, it has a traditional pastry-making heritage and farm produce that is always on local tables.
Sweets
- Monjàvina: a popular sweet flatbread of Moorish origin, usually made with honey.
- Rovells d'ou (egg-yolk sweets) and sweet potato pastries, classics of local baking.
- Honey torró (nougat).
A local landmark is the Teodoro Mora patisserie: founded in 1759 as a candle-maker's workshop, it became supplier to the Royal Household in 1877, under King Alfonso XII. Some families still bake their own cocas and sweets at home and take them to the local bakery's oven.
Local produce
- Olive oil and wine: olive groves are still the main crop. The oil is pressed at the Ontinyent Cooperative's mill, which also bottles its own wines.
- Fruit: apricots, grapes and the Meló d'Or, a year-round melon variety grown in Ontinyent since 1424.
- Honey and beeswax: Ontinyent has long produced honey, used as an ingredient or accompaniment in its pastries.
Preserving seasonal fruit and vegetables and curing olives are also traditions that live on.
