Food, Glorious Food

After unseasonably warm sunny weather with temperatures around 20 degrees, winter finally arrived here last weekend as we finished our run on Oliva beach in a flurry of snow. All our variety of heating equipment has been deployed at the house which was not designed for such cold weather.  When grey skies and rain arrive in this part of the world we often resort to one of our favourite pastimes - having a good lunch!

The region around Denia is well known for the fresh seafood that is hauled out of the Med and landed at the port every evening.  It is interesting to watch the bidding at the market but a lot more fun to sit around the corner in Aitana seafood tapas bar where there are no menus or prices and very few seats but it is always busy.  Plates of calamares, prawns, clams, mussels and fish are served by the cheerful Timo. Well, he is cheerful until someone makes the mistake of mentioning the recent smoking ban, or, still worse, orders non-alcoholic beer or water with their food, which clearly perplexes him.  I earned two suspicious looks, first for eating a mussel with a fork (stupid, I know) and then for declining a third glass of beer on grounds of driving (he poured me some more anyway).

The Valencian coastal area is however more famous for being the birthplace of Paella - now available anywhere in Spain as well as frozen and in packets in supermarkets the world over.

The flooded rice fields seen from Monte Pego

Like much of the fertile low-lying coastal strip, the marshland here between Pego and the sea was used for rice production by the Moors after they invaded early in the 8th century. Rice is still produced here 400 years after the last of the Moors were deported by royal decree from the port of Denia back to the coast of north Africa. After living here for nine centuries they left their mark here through language, architecture and farming techniques such as irrigation but perhaps it is in the food where their influence persists most.

On smallholdings (huertos) near the rice fields, locals began the traditional cooking of rice in large, wide, shallow round pans (called paellas) over wood fires. The rice is added last to a saffron-rich meat stock in which vegetables grown on the huerto such as beans, peppers, tomatoes and onions are also cooked. Whatever meat is available from the huerto is also added - typically a selection from chicken, rabbit, duck, pork and snails.  Having not eaten Paella for a couple of months that was inevitably our choice when we went down to the beach to our favourite local restaurant El Tresmall last Sunday.

Beyond the traditional Paella Valenciana described above which is eaten by families and friends on Sundays and made during fiestas in huge pans for the whole village to share, there are many other versions such as the seafood one made with delicious fish stock and local shellfish. Some restaurants offer up to 50 different rice dishes, some of them dry like paella while others are moist (meloso) or served in soup (caldoso). Another favourite of ours is Arroz Negro where the rice is cooked in squid ink from which it gets it's characteristic black appearance.

Whichever rice dish you choose for lunch it should be washed down with a glass of beer or wine and followed by that other great Spanish institution - the Siesta. There is a temptation on hot summer days to get in the pool afterwards but this is inadvisable as the rice seems to continue to expand for several hours after eating. So after an afternoon consuming rice, curling up on the sofa next to the log fire is the only option on a cold winter's day.



A classic post-paella siesta by the log fire!