The mediterranean restaurants of Barcelona are very well-known for the tourists and the citizens for his wide tapas and dishes selection. Although of the delicious food, there is a dish that eclipses over the others, we are talking about the paellas.
Some institutions like Turespaña have promoted these dishes around the world, as a gastronomic reference among the mediterranean cuisine and that is a fact to notice that the paellas have become a “must do” priority for a lot of foreigners, who travel to our country every year.
In today’s article we discover our delicious paellas, and we are going to show you some funny facts about the paellas, and maybe you will enjoy in Barcelona. Don’t miss it and try our premium author cocktails.
Table of contents
Paellas at the style of My Way
Unlike other restaurants of Barcelona, the paellas, that you could find in our lounge restaurant My Way are some of the best specialities, that we offer in our restaurant’s menu. They all are prepared with fine quality rice.
The portions that we offer to the customers are individually, and they are cooked by the best chefs of our restaurant, who concerns about the preparation, cooking and presentation equally. If you try our chicken paellas, seafood or vegetables, you would not be indifferent.
We sure you that you are going to love it! Every paella that we serve is the perfect flavor experience combined with our own mediterranean cuisine and charming atmosphere, where it will lead you to the past until the 50 centuries with a decó touch.
A heritage's Word
The word “paella” is a latin word, that comes to “patella”, a sort of recipe that many ancient cultures had used as a pan to cook different food kinds.
Although, other sources have confirmed that this word comes from the Arabic word “bakia” or “baella”. These two terms mean rest both.
It is due to the Islamic custom to save food from the opulent meals.
Traditionally, this “rest” of food used to be cooked with rice in order to preserve and combined them. As a curiosity, some Spanish words as alcaldia (Town hall), azúcar (sugar), almacén (warehouse) came it from the old Islamic words.
The paella origins
To make a closer look to the real story, we should go many centuries back until we would reach the conquests of Alexander the Great times. It is well known that this brilliant general and his Macedonian army reached the Indies during a military campaign, which pretended to raid the Persians’ empire domains.
After the conquest of the main Persian cities, some of their good had been exported around the commercial routes. Later, the Romans kept these products to integrate them in their self diet, using the best wet soils.
However, The rice didn’t reach Europa until the Muslims arrival, According to other authors, it would be known that the Muslims innovated the roman water system, allowing their incoming plantation. After the Spanish reconquista, some of these procedures were adapted.
After the expulsion of the Jews by the catholic kings, the rice popularity skyrocketed and thus some regions like Valencia started to make their own Paella version with some ingredients modifications, despite of some diet restrictions.
In the XV centuries, the king Felipe II itself gave away the Japanese consuls with a Valencian paella and thus some cookers started to test new paellas versions.
One century later, the recipe was recognized as a heritage of the Spanish cuisine. In fact, these influence spread across the world and the cookbooks.
Familiar customs
In a popular sense in some cities like Valencia, Alicante and Barcelona, the families traditionally meet each other on Sunday to eat paella in some restaurant or their own home.
It is a tradition that has been rooted for a long time, since it was traditionally associated as a custom of the local population, where this dish became popular over time.
World paella day
Every 20 Septembers it celebrates an international fest due to the coincidence with the rice season. Nevertheless, during this year some cook contest are arranged, the most important of all is the World Paella Day Cup.
A special contest, where the contestants present their culinary creations to a special jury. In the last edition, the winner was Noelia Pascual.
A terrible mistake from Apple
In many internet forums and websites, criticism and news circulate about the mishap that Apple made when designing a paella emoji on IOS. The emoticon itself represented a typical seafood paella, the Valencians themselves, through thousands of protests, urged Apple to remove the icon for one more appropriate to the cause.
Fortunately, this proposal was accepted and they modified the emoticon for one more in line with the reality of the dish. As a curiosity, in the history of Apple changes have been made with other emojis such as the princess emoticon, the surfer woman, the boys with rabbit ears…
The paella ingredient that you have probably not know
Previously, we already commented that paella was a fairly common dish in the middle and lower social classes. What very few people know is that the original paella had a unique ingredient that was very common to be found in towns like Albufera. Can you guess what it is?
The Albufera’s rat!
This little mouse is very common in many forest of Spain and when the tough times appeared was one of the paella’s main ingredient that was a good replace for the chicken and the rabbit. Ironically, this “mouse” loves eating the rice plantations, for this reason it became hated by the farmers.
Nowadays, the Albufera’s rat is a protected specie, thus some animals, like the rat or the ferret have hunted the Albufera’s rat as a prey, reducing their population seriously.
The world's biggest paella
The Valencian Antonio Galbis is recognized by the Guinness worldwide records as an important hit, that took place in 1992. Thanks to some friend’s collaboration, he accomplished this goal with a big paella for 100,000 people.
The city itself made a grant to build a huge paella pan to prepare it, with more than 20 meters in diameter and weighing 30 tons. The cook himself became famous and more than once delighted his countrymen with giant paellas.
So far our article dedicated to the extraordinary world of paellas. We hope it has helped you to discover even more curiosities about this delicious dish. And if you want more…. Do not miss our excellent article on white wines and start your first steps as a sommelier.
