The pleasures of paella
FOOD | Julianne Glatz
I’ve had Spain on my brain lately. Not because I’m planning a trip, although it’s high on my travel wish list. It’s because on Aug. 14 my husband, Peter, and I will host a house concert by a world-famous flamenco guitarist.
We’d decided not to have any more house concerts until fall. But when the opportunity to book Adam Del Monte came up, we just couldn’t turn it down.
A classical and flamenco guitarist, Del Monte spent much of his childhood in Spain, which he considers his natural environment. He studied classical guitar in Spain and Britain, and also spent months at a time living with gypsies in caves in the Sacromonte hill in Granada, Spain, absorbing the art of flamenco. “My physical body was born in Israel, but my soul was born in Granada,” he says. “Flamenco is much more than guitar playing and the percussive dance associated with it. Above all, it’s a way of life with a multi-faceted feeling.”
Del Monte has won international guitar competitions and performed worldwide, including in America at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and with the Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta symphonies. He also composes and teaches at the University of Southern California.
If flamenco is a musical way of life, paella is a culinary way of life. In fact, there’s an article in the July/August 1996 issue of Saveur magazine entitled “Paella as a Way of Life.” Considered Spain’s national dish, it has countless familial and regional variations, but everyone agrees that paella originated in Valencia, where the short-grain rice integral to it flourishes in area marshes. They also agree that the original paella wasn’t seafoodladen, as are many modern versions, but was a rustic dish made with ingredients from kitchen gardens and hutches: chicken, rabbit, land snails and three kinds of beans, cooked over a wood fire and eaten from a communal pan outdoors.
That’s about all they do agree on. Some insist paella is still properly consumed only outdoors, away from the city. Some say it’s been perfected in restaurants. Some say it should be eaten midday, others say at night. Some say paella can only be made with Valencia’s calcium-rich water. Is making it on a stove acceptable? Finishing it in an oven?
Acceptable ingredients are disputed.
Mixed paellas (containing meat and seafood) are less common in Spain than in America, although they do exist. There are fish and seafood paellas; vegetable paellas; meat, poultry and game paellas; egg paellas – there’s even a paella (my favorite) that uses pasta instead of rice. Spanish cooking expert Penelope Casas’ cookbook, Paella! contains more than three dozen variations.
In the end, though, what makes paella a “way of life” doesn’t depend on specific ingredients, or how it’s prepared. Like flamenco, paella is meant to be shared with family and friends, a convivial celebration of life.
To make a reservation or find out more about the Aug. 14 house concert featuring Adam Del Monte, visit www.glatzclinic.com or call 217-525-8444.
Contact Julianne Glatz at realcuisine.jg@gmail.com.
