SC - Every-Flavor Beans and Other Wizard Treats

[LrdRas@aol.com]

Thomas wrote:
>
>Do the authors give some instances of somebody calling the dish "arroz a
>la valenciana" and "Paella valenciana". When and were did this happen?
>
>Do they (or any other source) mention:
>-- original texts that describe a culinary preparation which
>sufficiently ressembles the preparation of paella;
>-- original texts where the expressions "arroz a la valenciana", "paella
>valenciana" or even "paella" are used to refer to the dish, we now know
>as paella;

Maybe some of what I´m going to say has been mentioned already but I
returned from holiday to around 2000 unread messages in my inbox (forgot to
unsubscribe from the mailinglists I´m on) and I don´t have the energy to go
through them just now.

Anyway:


I know there is a book by Lourdes March called "El libro de la paella y de
los arroces" (Madrid, 1985) which probably has some answers, but I haven´t
seen it and don´t have access to it.

According to The Oxford Companion to Food, the earliest reference to
"Valencian paella" is found in a local newspaper in 1840. The Companion has
an interesting entry on paella, by the way, most of it dealing with the
utensil, not the dish.

I have a cookbook by food historian Jaume Fàbrega, who has written a
seven-volume encyclopedia on Catalonian cooking. Unfortunately (well, not
for Thomas), I only have the German edition, but Fàbrega says on the history
of paella Valenciana:

"In mittelalterlichen Kochbüchern wird der Reis in Tontopf gekocht, die
Eisenpanne erscheint relativ spät im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Den ersten
Hinweis auf die Zubereitungsart fand ich in einem Manuskript aus dem ersten
Drittel des 18. Jahrhunderts, in dem eindeutig zwischen "Reis nach
katalanischer Art" und "Reis in der Pfanne" oder "nach Valencianischer Art"
unterschieden wird: "Wenn Du noch Wasser hast, wo Du Fishc gekocht hast, so
nehme ein Pfund Reis auf einen halben Liter Wasser, wenn Du ihn nach der Art
Valencias machen willst, aber dreiviertel Liter Wasser auf ein Pfund Reis,
wenn du ihn nach der Art Kataloniens machen willst." ... Später haben
Schriftsteller und Dichter die Paella erwähnt, und natürlich auch
ausländische kulinarische Ratgeber wie der Larousse Gastronomique, die aber
viel Unrichtiges erzählen."

>-- original text passages that indicate that there is a connection
>"pillaw"/"paella" and possible ways of influence?

Now if there is some evidence that there was a rice dish called paella in
medieval times, the influence just might be the other way around, because
pilaf/pilaw comes from medieval Farsi "palaw", is of unknown origin and
seems to have arrived in India with the Muslims. But I don´t think so.

It is interesting to note, though, that both Spanish paella Valenciana and
Central Asian palaw are traditionally cooked outdoors by men ...

Nanna