Last Spring, in the early weeks of the first wave of coronavirus, Spain was in one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe. Travel was limited and shopping was restricted to the confines of the city, town or village in which you resided.
On a shopping trip in April, in a small supermarket in my village of Cómpeta, whilst on a hunt for something to raise the spirits, I came across a small red bag of baked snacks called "Quelitas", a brand I had never seen before. I didn't know anything about them or what they would taste like but I thought they looked interesting and decided to buy a pack. One afternoon, about a week later, we decided to try some of those snacks with a beer and to our surprise found them to be rather delicious. We were hooked. Knowing nothing of the brand name "Quely" or the product "Quelitas" and with plenty of spare time on my hands, I decided to find out more about my newly found discovery. My investigations revealed a curious history.
On the Balearic island of Mallorca, there are still people who remember the time in 1956 when Grace Kelly, by now Princess Grace of Monaco, and her husband Prince Rainier came to the island to celebrate their honeymoon. The couple arrived on board their yacht "Deo Juvante II" and spent two weeks in a suite at the luxury Hotel Formentor, with sea views over the bay of the same name.
During their stay, they made various outings around the island and one day they took a boat trip to the Balearic capital of Palma de Mallorca. When they arrived at the port there was a large gathering waiting to greet them. As the Royal couple waved to the crowd from the deck of that boat, they could not have imagined that they were going to be responsible for launching a brand of local biscuits.
In 1853, the Domènech family set themselves up as a bakery and oven in the town of Inca. At that time they made ship's biscuits that were in great demand from merchants who were sailing across the world trading goods and needed a nutritious and long-lasting foodstuff for the journeys. The biscuits became known as "Galletas de Inca".
In 1934, Jaume Domènech Borrás acquired a small plot of land opposite the railway station in Inca and the following year he started construction on the building that would eventually become the family's first factory. However, he hit a problem. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 caused the production of the machinery needed for the factory to be delayed for several years. In 1940, the manufacturer agreed to respect the price of the original order and the equipment that Domènech needed duly arrived. The factory, now with some of the most modern equipment in Europe, began producing the "Galleta María", a biscuit similar to a Rich Tea in the U.K. Jaume Domènch died in 1947 and his two sons took on the running of the business and developed new products for the range.
During that visit to Mallorca in 1956, Grace Kelly could never have realised that she had such a powerful spell over the people of the Mallorca and the Domènch family in particular, so much so that in the 1960s when they developed their snack range, they decided to rebrand the business under the name "Quely", changing the "K" for the more familiar "Que" which they felt would be more commercial in Spain at the time.
(For those unfamiliar with Spanish, "que" is a hard sound like the K in Ken in English. Think of Manuel, the waiter from Barcelona, in Fawlty Towers. ¿Qué?. Incidentally, for the Spanish dub for the broadcast of Fawlty Towers in Spain, Manuel was an Italian waiter from Naples called Paolo!) The Quely snack, and it's smaller sister, Quelitas were born, derived from those early "Galletas de Inca", the ship's biscuits created in the 19th century.
The Quely brand became a huge success for Mallorca and in recent times one of the island's most famous sons, tennis player Rafa Nadal, has participated in promotional campaigns for the company.
Quely and its range of products are well known on the Balerarics (anyone who has holidayed there may know them well) but this was the first time in 16 years of living in Spain that I had come across the brand. It could be said that this was a lockdown discovery for me.
Unfortunately, the local supermarket from where I got my supply stopped selling Quelitas and despite my search in other local shops as well as major supermarkets at the coast, I was unable to find another stockist. There was only one option left, the internet. A quick Goggle search led me to the Quely website and there it was, an online store.
The minimum order is a case but you can mix products so it had to be done. Well, we could not miss out on our Grace Kelly inspired snacks!
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