About Paella

If there is one dish that Symbolises Spain, it must be Paella!  The home of Paella is Valencia in Eastern Spain, not only one of the largest natural ports in the Mediterranean, but also an important rice producing area since Moorish days.

Paella was originally farmers’ and farm labourer’s food, cooked by the workers over a wood fire for a lunchtime meal. It was made with rice, plus whatever was to hand around the rice fields and countryside such as chicken, duck, rabbit and snails, with a few beans added for flavour and texture, plus a touch of saffron for colour.  This meal was traditionally eaten straight from the pan it was cooked in with each person using his won wooden spoon.

To this day a ‘true’ Paella Valenciana has no seafood, but contains a mixture of chicken, duck, rabbit, green and white beans and sometimes snails, however with Valencia also being in the coast, it is no surprise that seafood has crept into the recipes over the generations.

There are several theories about the origins of the name.  The most romantic is that the dish was first prepared by a lover for his fiancée and that the word is a corruption of por ella (meaning ‘for her’ in Spanish).  As with all myths, there is a grain of truth in this.  Although women are the traditional cooks in Spain, making Paella is ‘man’s work’ heralding back to the time when the dish was cooked in the fields by farm workers.

Another theory for the word Paella, was that is was developed from the Arabic word ‘Baqiyah’, which means leftovers, again emphasising the dish’s humble beginnings, although more likely it takes it name from the Latin word for pan, Patella, and is simply a reference to the dish in which it is traditionally cooked.

With regards to cooking Paella, we can across this rather interesting quote,

“Paella is like a ship, it can only have one captain!!”

Whilst this may not be strictly true it is a good quote to brandish when you want to maintain all of the culinary glory!