Paella
Paella is a typical Spanish dish and is traditionally cooked in a “paellera” - a round flat pan with two handles - which is then put on the table. In many Spanish villages, especially in coastal areas, they use a giant paellera to cook a paella on festival days which is big enough to feed everybody. Ripe with history, paella is the signature dish of Spain. Its lasting success is due to the simplicity of its preparation, and the quality and variety of its ingredients.
The Ebro delta is actually just north of Valencia in Tarragona.
But Valencia has become closely associated with rice dishes made from the short grain Arborio rice which grows there.
The most famous being Paella (Pie-ay-ah).
“La Paella” is a cooking utensil, traditionally and preferably made of iron. The pan is circular and shallow with two round handles on opposite sides with a flat base of a good thickness. The word itself is old Valencian and probably has its roots in the Latin “patella” (A flat basket in Galicia). The Castillian “paila” and the French “paele” mean the same thing.
During the centuries following the establishment of rice in Spain, the peasants of Valencia would use the paella pan to cook rice with easily available ingredients from the countryside: tomatoes, onions and snails.
On special occasions rabbit or duck might be included, and the better-off could afford chicken.
Little by little this “Valencian rice” became more widely known.
By the end of the nineteenth century “paella valenciana” had established itself.
