Like a Spanish Cowboy

The other day I participated in a Paella contest. Miguel, the events coordinator for my school, is a good friend with one of the fallas in Valencia—the group of folks who run the festivities in their barrio—so every year he lets the students participate in the festivities. Think of a block party where everyone starts a little campfire in the street and cooks a giant pan of delicious paella—there was even a beer truck!

Since my friends here know I like to cook, I was in charge of cooking our Paella. There are a few vegetarians so we decided to skip the mainstream Paella Valenciano and cook a Paella Verduras—a delicious mess of four types of beans, artichokes, tomatoes and rice.

The traditional Paella Valenciano contains artichokes, garrafone (a large Spanish bean), tomatoes, rabbit, chicken, snails and saffron for coloring and salt—that is it. Some folks toss in a bit of pepper or chile and it is considered okay. Me wanting authenticity, I tried to stick to the traditional recipe. However, everyone I spoke to before buying the ingredients neglected to tell me that additional seasoning is acceptable when making the vegetarian version due to the lack of delicious animal fat. The result? Bland and boring.

Despite my failure, the dish wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t anything close to delicious, but it has potential. Even so, after all the beer I drank while the rice simmered, the semi-decent paella was a welcome addition to my stomach.

I plan on brining a paellera home to I can cook up the stuff in my backyard for 4th of July and other BBQ-ing holidays. My host mother Reyes said she’d get me one as a gift. I hope I’ll be getting a personal Paella cooking lesson as well.