paella | Gary J. Kirkpatrick Art and Travel Blog

What amazes me about living in Valencia is how much is going on. We were back from Poland in time to: 1) attend a special performance of a traveling orchestra and chorus. They served up a fabulous Handel concert including seven operatic singers and a large chorus. 2) have a rice dish at the paella festival in the main plaza (Plaza del Ayuntamiento) and a Patatas Bravas (fried potatoes with a slightly spicy garlic mayonnaise sauce) festival at the port. 3) One of my large paintings for the Dones (Women) of Picanya was exhibited at the University of Valencia, where it joined its permanent collection 4) While we at the exhibition, nearby some fifty thousand demonstrated against the Provincial administration for its president’s failure to issue warnings in the floods of a year ago. 5) We attended the fund raiser organized by the International Women’s Club which the wife helped organize and to which I contributed a painting. They raised $7000 for several charitable organizations. 6) We’ve had numerous outings with friends and regular acquaintances, including intercambios (Spanish/English language exchanges). I probably missed something.

The Paella Festival

In English we typically refer to paella loosely as yellow colored rice with various meats and or seafood. In Spanish the generic term is arroces,” that is ‘rice dishes.’ In this area there are five main variations: Paella Valencian with chicken and rabbit, “Senyoret” (the Valenciano spelling). It is fish based. The shellfish is pealed for your convenience, making it less messy than the next one: ‘Mariscos.” Its shellffish is not pealed. Then there’s meloso, a soupy variation, and these days you can get a “vegetariana.” These were popular at the festival, except meloso, normally served just in winter, as is ‘arroz al horno, a rice dish baked in the oven and since it is not cooked in that big flat pan (called a “paella” in Valenciano) it is not technically a paella but it is an arroz.

There were a dozen or so other rice dishes I’d never heard of. One was ‘arroz de puchero.’ Puchero is a beef stew. Another was “Winter boneless chicken with fava beans.” I had one with smoked pork and boletes mushrooms, which has a very long stem. There was one with stewed pork and mushrooms in a brothy rice, not soupy like meloso and not dry like most rice dishes. I saw one with just mussels. It was not colored yellow- I’d never seen a white paella before.

If you can find a copy of Penelope Casas’ book The Foods and Wines of Spain you will find about 50 recipes. Each region has its own versions. The one Americans are familiar with comes from Galicia. It has seafood and meat along with red peppers and green peas. It is one of my favorites.

Musicaeterna Choir and Orchestra

One of the several concerts we attended was extraordinary, the best of its sort I’ve had the privilege to attend. The “Musicaeterna Choir and Orchestra) https://musicaeterna.org/ is a touring Russian group organized by its conductor Teodor Currentzis. Aside from the excellent orchestra there were seven singers, all women except one. The choir must have numbered 50 or more.

The operatic singers all entered and exited the stage at a dirge pace. The chorus filed in silently from four entrances, two at audience level and two from the area above the stage. It was all to dramatic effect. The vocalists were of all different sizes and shapes, from a tiny mezzo-soprano to the hefty prima donna whose bosomy boom knocked you off your.

Then came the hefty male, only a weight class below a sumo. Did he knock us over with the magnificent base you’d expect? Nay! He hit us with a falsetto, blasting his way through demi-semi-quavered crescendo after crescendo.

Meanwhile the first violinist’s lanky blond limbs and arms gestured like a rock bassist’s, as Teo flipped that baton when he had one while his tall self pointed here and there until the next singer arrived. Then he stood in the singer’s face while mouthing the words, baton flying still. The singers didn’t flinch, so obviously used to this odd behavior. Violating the normally staid norms was clearly part of the act.

Gary Bob says check them out!

The Demonstration

Here’s a good video of the demonstration

And last but not least, the exhibition:

Vencerem! (We Shall Overcome) painting, top floor

I am in Valencia for a few weeks, before flying to Poland to visit a string of small cities there. I am staying at the edge of Valencia, actually, in a small town called Nazaret. It is just a few streets wide but it includes Valencia’s huge port, so against the skyline you see the not so attractive cargo cranes. The port is one of the largest in Europe. There is a regular line of ships waiting foir a spot, while some 600 cruise ships disembark thousands of passengers for short tours of the historic center.

Nazaret has many civic groups, many of the secular and a few religious. Among the former is the music association, common to many small towns in the province of Valencia. There are some 800 municipal symphonic bands, one of Valencia’s cultural treasures. Last night a religious group sponsored a paella party. This being Spain, it did not get started until 9 pm. The paella was ready a bit after 1100, cooked over wood fires set on the stone streets. To keep the stone from scorching they spread small piles of sand, upon which the wood is placed. They fiddle a lot with the fires even after they burn down to coals, moving and adding wood to keep the heat in the proper range. Everyone stands about drinking wine, sangria, beer, water or soft drinks, munching on potato chips, almonds – they grow in abundance here – sunflower seeds and whatnot. This is while offering advice to the chef, unbid perhaps, on how much flame, salt or what have you is needed. Everyone or at least his or her mother does paella at home. Paella is a fixation of Valencianos, not the Spanish as a whole, and most households don’t let a Sunday go by without one of the 5 major variations finding its way to the table.

Paella cooking on the streets of Nazaret

Kids from age 8 or so on up were running about the plaza during all of this cooking. I am not sure if they even stopped to eat any paella. Paella at this time of the day is not common. This dish is too heavy, they say. But this is a special occasion, and there are hundreds at the tables.

There are two ways you share the paella. You can have it served onto a plate, or eat right out of the paella pan. Of course if you are too far away from the pan, you get a plate. I may have invented a third method, which combines one and two. I grabbed a plate to avoid dropping food on my trousers. There is a good amount of oil in this paella so extra caution was called for.

Paella Valenciana (chicken, rabbit, some lima-like beans, green beans)

So everyone talks to one another, well more or less, as certainly there are relationship issues. As a general rule in Spain, any excuse for a party will do, and friendly chatter is the general rule. Since I am not from around here, although not by any means the only foreigner, I did get some extra attention, mostly of the where are you from variety. Ximo, my host, explains how we met in Florida in 2005, at an international folk dance event. His parents hosted us for a few days on our first visit here in 2011, while we looked for an apartment. On several occasions his mother made us paella in the small garden behind their house- they have a small farm outside of town with almond trees and artichokes to care for. He and Andrea is hosting me for my short visit this time. I’ll write a few notes about our tapas adventures in the near future.