Shoppers Stampede Sale of Spanish Nuns' Festive Treats

As Christmas consumer bunfights go, there has been something distinctly sacrilegious about the mass stampede to a sale in Madrid of yuletide treats made by Spain's cloistered monks and nuns.

Queue-barging and ugly rows about boxes of handmade marzipan have broken out as customers have snapped up 50 tonnes of sweets, pastries, cakes, biscuits, wines, jams and the nougat-like Christmas delicacy turrón made by 30 convents and monasteries around Spain. "We can't keep up with demand," an organiser said yesterday.

The produce that emerges from the gardens and ancient kitchens of Spain's cloistered monasteries has a reputation not just for divine inspiration but for following secret recipes handed down over centuries. Getting holding of it, however, usually involves long treks to distant convents exchange, through small revolving doors, money for the produce.

This week's sale, ExpoCloister, not only saves on travelling but will help to stop many of Spain's crumbling, half-empty convents and monasteries from falling down.