Paella is not understood in the U.S. Maybe it’s not even understood in the world outside of Spain. People in Valencia don’t even think that people outside of Valencia understand paella, so I guess the rest of the world is absolutely screwed then. I always associated paella with seafood since that’s how it’s typically served at Spanish restaurants I’ve been to in the U.S., but I learned today that similar to sushi in Japan, paella was originally considered poor man’s food. When meat and seafood were rare and expensive, working men prepared paella, mainly with snails, because rice and snails were both plentiful and extremely cheat. Original versions of paella had a combination of chicken, rabbit, snails, and green and white beans. The current seafood variations we now embrace today are more modern interpretations, and they’re actually not called “paella” in Valencia, but “rice with seafood” translated. They call it paella at the restaurants to cater to foreigners’ tastes. We still ended up getting the seafood paella at the famous paella restaurant we visited here, and at 3pm, we were eating at especially Spanish time for lunch. The rice was cooked in a shallow pan the authentic way over a massive fire, and each grain of rice was distinct, infused with the strongest and richest seafood taste. The socarrat bottom, or the crispy bottom that I loved eating in the rice I had growing up, was also present in this pan along the perimeter. This massive plate was a plate of heaven. It’s as though all my feelings about Spanish food and paella have been changed just because of this one meal.

The 18-euro bottle of red wine also helped. These are all the joys of traveling abroad and learning about other cultures that could never fully be recreated back home.