Paella is now 'national heritage' and its first-known recipe is revealed

THE most international household name in Spanish cuisine, paella has now been awarded 'intangible heritage' status nationwide.

Not quite UNESCO status, but the national equivalent, the tag applied for in May this year by the Mediterranean region of the Comunidad Valenciana has been duly granted, and although paella needs little advertising in itself, global tourists in Spain will now be unable to escape the knowledge that it is these three provinces – Castellón, Valencia and Alicante – where the popular saffron-yellow rice dish comes from.

In applying for the status of Bien de Interés Cultural Inmaterial, or BIC Inmaterial (literally translated as 'Intangible Heritage Interest Asset'), the Valencian regional government explained paella was 'not just a dish', but a 'thread binding the region's society together'.

Like most national or regional cuisine anywhere in the world, paella's origins are humble and simple, and the BIC application pointed out that it continues to be the most 'democratic' and 'classless' of all dishes, given that it's relatively cheap to whip up a basic version and often comes as the main course in a cut-price set lunchtime meal or menú del día, which typically range from around €6 to €15 for three courses, bread and a bottle of water or glass of wine, but at the same time, highly-exquisite versions of paella are served up in the kind of multiple Michelin-starred eateries where a similar-sized meal would cost you a three-figure sum per head.

Pronunciation and preparation warnings: A quick survival guide

Given that so many variations of paella exist – and hundreds more that are not, strictly-speaking, paella but look and taste like it and come under the heading of 'rice dishes', or 'rice with' (arroz con or arròs amb) – there is no single, authentic, unchangeable recipe that, if you alter just one ingredient or quantity, ceases to be the 'real thing'.

That said, there are some ground rules, and one of them – as UK celebrity chef Jamie Oliver found out to his cost – is that chorizo spicy sausage never, ever goes into it.

The partly-in-jest but partly-serious social-media-born National Culinary Body (Cuerpo Nacional Gastronómico, or CNG) created the hashtag #StopGastroterrorismo ('Stop Gastro-Terrorism') in a bid to halt 'culinary abominations' on the scale of paella with chorizo, in the wake of what looked set to become a tongue-in-cheek diplomatic crisis that even led to the British Ambassador for Spain getting involved.

For the record, if your chorizo is more likely to come from Sainsbury's than from Spanish supermarkets, it's pronounced 'cho-ree-thoh', and not with an Italian 'z', or 'tz', as you'll often hear in the UK among those who regularly fling it in their shopping trolleys.

On that note, remember the double-L in the Spanish language is pronounced as a 'y' (except in Argentina and Uruguay, where it sounds closer to a 'zh' or a French 'j'), meaning the correct pronunciation of 'paella' does not have an L-sound in it: Pah-eh-ya, is how you say it.

Practice both of these words in case you ever plan to order them whilst visiting Spain, to make sure you're understood, but don't even think about asking for the two in one dish.

The original 1857 recipe is now thought to be similar 'paella blasphemy'

'Paella' is – rather like balti and similar – the name of the pan it's cooked in, which is how the rice combination originally got its title; nowadays, paella is just as likely to refer to the actual food on your plate as the flat metal dish you fry and simmer it in, but the latter explains why the recipes vary and why some rice dishes that look and taste paella-ish technically aren't, as they are cooked in different types of container, such as glazed terracotta terrines.

In fact, the first-known recipe for it is headed up Sartén a la Valenciana (Paella), or, more or less, 'Valencian fry-up', given that a sartén is a frying pan, with the 'paella' bit in brackets to let you know what type of frying pan is involved.

It was written down in 1857 by chefs M. Garciarena and Mariano Muñoz, and is based upon one of the most prolific and cheap staple ingredients you can find in the Comunidad Valenciana – rice.

The waterland between Pego and Oliva, on the Alicante-Valencia province border, and the Albufera wetland which occupies the coast of nearly the whole of the southern half of the province of Valencia, have been used as paddy-fields for centuries; rice harvested directly from either is now a delicacy and very expensive, but historically, was merely a source of sustenance for poorer, rural families.

As well as rice, the 1857 recipe includes the standard water, olive oil, salt, saffron for the colour, garlic, plus others such as tomato, chicken, green beans, pork loin, sausages, peeled red pepper, parsley, peas, eels and snails.

Meat-based paellas or 'rice dishes', typically found in inland parts rather than near the coast, do sometimes include snails, but peas are, nowadays, considered an absolute 'no-no' on a par with chorizo, and you won't find it with sausages in, either.

It's actually more north African than Spanish – or was, once

Paella can be completely vegan or full-on carnivorous, although the most common varieties tend to be either seafood (paella de marisco), or the 'surf-and-turf' Valencian version (paella valenciana), with other options including beans and turnip, chickpeas and artichokes, or meat-only (chicken being frequent).

It dates back to a lot earlier than 1857, though. Rice was first brought to Europe by Alexander the Great in the year 330 BCE (BC), but was not grown on the continent in any significant quantity until the Middle Ages, when the Moors, or Arabs from northern Africa, settled in Spain en masse.

It was the Muslim community, in the majority in Spain for around 700 years, who developed the irrigation, cultivation and harvesting techniques in coastal salt-marshes that allowed rice to thrive and become a key feature of main meals.

Uncooked rice? Really?

Rice is known to have been used peeled and blanched in the early 16th century in eastern Spanish cooking, and playwright Francisco de Paula Martí wrote a small essay in 1513 titled General Agriculture of Gabriel Alonso de Herrera, in which he describes the process in full.

“The Valencians boast – and, in my view, for good reason – that nobody besides them has ever managed to season rice better than they have, nor in as many different ways,” he wrote 508 years ago.

“It is no surprise that the Valencians have reached a level of perfection, unseen in other provinces, in preparing a staple food upon which they survive almost exclusively – especially among those people with no great skills – and that they have, for these reasons, studied the best ways of making it the most pleasing to the palate.

“Everywhere else, one has attempted to imitate them, and for this reason they usually leave it half-boiled, erroneously naming it 'Valencian-style rice', convinced that these same Valencians eat it almost raw after having observed how the boiled grains appeared whole and separate from each other in Valencian stews.”

Recipes for 'Valencian-style rice' dating back to the 18th century have been found, but would be unworkable as they stipulate that the rice has to be dry.

In practice, paella, or other types of Valencian 'rice dish' are made by pouring the rice into a sizzling pan with oil and then, once all the ingredients are added to the frying mixture, topped up with water – vegetable, meat or fish stock – and the heat turned down, leaving it to simmer.

This means the rice does 'boil' properly and is not hard at all, but many a non-Valencian first-time paella-maker has thrown the whole lot away in dismay after finding it had 'got burnt and stuck to the pan' – again, wrongly, because it is supposed to do just that.

Spanish supermarkets sell powerful washing-up liquids labelled 'for paella pans', and even 'paella-pan scrapers', precisely for this reason.