The Story of Spain’s Love Affair with Rice

More than half of the World’s population depends on rice as their basic means of sustenance. It is the most important agricultural crop in the world and has been around for more than 7,000 years, grown principally on the Indian subcontinent and in China. What’s more, there are an estimated 120,000 different varieties growing in the world today.

In the great scheme of things, rice is a relative newcomer to Europe, most likely introduced to Greece (and then Italy) by soldiers who came back from the military campaign conducted by Alexander the Great in India in the fourth century BCE. The Moors introduced it to Spain when they invaded in the eighth century, and Spain introduced it to South America in the early 16th century. (There was already a domesticated rice in the New World that had been tamed about 4,000 years ago, but it appears to have been abandoned after Europeans arrived.)

Rice Paddies and Disease

The grain was first planted south of Valencia in the marshlands surrounding the large wetlands of l’Albufera; in Castellón and Andalucia; and on the l’Empordá plains of Catalunya. However, by the year 1238, following a virulent outbreak of malaria across the entire Països Catalanes, King Jaume I of Aragon decreed that rice growing be restricted to the paddies of l’Albufera. His diagnosis, not incorrectly, put the epidemic down to the fetid, stagnant lagoons where the rice grew.

History repeated itself centuries later in l'Empordà, where rice growing in the aïguamolls (marshes) was an important source of income between the 16th and 18th century. “In 1835, when the fevers possessed the region and extended mourning everywhere, Creixença Vilà, after the death of her husband, her children, Paulí, Antón, Climent and Caterina, and her brothers-in-law Narcís, Jaume and Josep, and realizing that the pleas of the villages afflicted by the epidemic, began a vigorous protest against the rice crop,” wrote Francis Barret in his essay, Els Aïguamolis and Malaria. “The inhabitants of Albons, Bellcaire and Torroella de Montgrí met in the square of the last village and decided to drain the land and thus destroy the crop. That way, the epidemic would end in all the rice areas of l'Empordà.”

Creixença’s campaign almost succeeded in entirely wiping out rice from the region, but not quite. A small amount is still grown around Pals, which today has its own D.O. The bulk of Spain’s rice crop, however, is still grown in Valencia. Spain’s Japonica grains (similar to sushi rice) are typically short, round and fat, distinguished by their high starch molecule count which means they swell, concertina-like when simmered in liquid, absorbing flavor while retaining their shape.

Growing Rice in Spain Today

Modern rice-growing methods employ a series of flooding (every hectare of rice requires around 35,000 cubic meters of water a year) and draining techniques eliminating stagnant waters and eradicating the threat of disease. In brief, from September through to February the fields are flooded. In March and April, the fields are drained and the ground ploughed and prepared for planting. At the end of April the fields are flooded again, and finally, in May, they are drained once more (as water drains off the paddies it takes with it the insects and parasites that threaten the crop) and planted with the grain ready for harvesting come September. At this time of year, the paddy fields of l'Albufera make an extraordinary sight that belongs more to Asia than to Spain: an endless pea-green sea criss-crossed by muddy channels, though the modern harvest is now conducted by brilliant machines rather than the hand of man.

This relatively small region accounts for 90 percent of the rice in Spain and 26 percent of the rice in all Europe. There are three key varieties: Bahía, Senia, and the wonderful Bomba all of which fall under the D.O de Arròs de València. Bomba is the best, the most difficult to grow and therefore the most expensive, but it will transform an ordinary paella into a gastronomic delight.

A Culinary Treasure

And so, on to Spain’s national dishes: arroces (from the Arabic ar-ruzz). From the juicy calderos of Murcia to the Costa Brava’s arròs negres to the famed paellas of Valencia, the extraordinary depth and diversity of Spanish rice dishes, in feast and in famine, is one of the country’s greatest gastronomic achievements. Spaniards love rice so much that they eat, on average, six kilograms of rice per person, per year.

Paella takes its name from the utensil that cooks it. A paellero/a is the person who cooks it, and a serious business it is, too. In 1987, Lorenzo Millo Casas of the Spanish Gastronomic Society published the following guidelines for making a good one:

“Paella is essentially an open-air festive dish, and, as such, falls within the masculine preserve. The paella is a pastoral dish, born under a shady tree. It is a man who must prepare it, a recognized paellero of good repute. It must be eaten out of the pan in which it is cooked, with the participants seated in a circle around it, each armed with his own wooden spoon.”

It’s worth noting here that the original paellas were products of the land, not the sea, typically flavored with rabbits and snails, chicken and sausages, and hedgerow herbs like fennel and rosemary. Seafood paellas, good as they are, are very much a 20th-century invention.

Arroz abanda is the less famous cousin of the paella, and also hails from Valencia. In this case the fish is served first. The rice comes second; a deeply-flavored dish in which the rice has been slowly cooking in fish stock until golden and aromatic.

Muria’s extraordinary caldero works on a similar principle. Plump, juicy grains of Calasparra rice are infused with nyora peppers and an entire head of garlic, giving a rich, russet color to the dish and piquant notes to the savory fish stock. Again, the fish is consumed first, the rice forming the crown of the meal.

Calasparra rice is grown in the mountains of Murcia, high above the ragged, sun-blistered canyon of the Valle de Ricote, where it enjoys a cooler climate and pure mountain water irrigation, first engineered by the Moors over 1,000 years ago. It was the first rice in Spain to receive a D.O. and is the most complicated; it takes three times as long to grow as other rice grains, it takes three times as long to cook and absorbs three times the amount of liquid. According to chef Pepe García of the excellent restaurant Pez Rojo in Murcia, who reputedly make the best caldero in the region (and I have no reason to dispute this) no other kind will do.

The arròs negre de l’Empordà (most typically found around Palafrugell and surrounding areas) is not to be confused with the squid-ink infused arròs negre of the Costa Brava. It is, perhaps, one of the least known of Spain’s infinite rice dishes, gaining its darkly mysterious color from the slow loving cooking of the sofregit that gives it its robust, earthy flavor.

In his book, El Que Hem Menjat (What We Have Eaten), Josep Pla pretty much sums it up: “The basic, important, essential thing about the rice is the variety of fried ingredients used as its base. If the base all comes together and turns into a liquor, the rice will be monumental whatever else might go into the pot.”