Why an International day of paella?
You re going to have to get used to it… from now on, every September 20th, we will be celebrating the paella, all over the world. With this iconic Spanish dish, which is also the core of the Valenciana gastronomy culture that will be put forward and under the spotlights.
And the winner was……Chabe Soler of La Ferrera restaurant in Pinedo.
A list of restaurants participating can be found here:
Some may ask why on earth are we making a paella world day when this dish is originally a ‘poor man’s dish’? Before the paella became the dish it is today, it was just a leftover meal. The dish was first created during the 18th century, when at the end of the week the women of the house used to make up a dish mixing leftovers of chicken, rabbit and beans with the locally grown rice. It’s was few kilometres south of Valencia, where the main rice fields of the region are, that the Paella was invented: the Albufera, this vast freshwater lake is the official birthplace of this world famous dish.
After the Civil War the paella was chosen as the culinary emblem of Spain in order to develop tourism. This dish, which is not expensive to créate, is also inspired by the colours of the Spanish flag: the red peppers, the tomatoes, the vibrant yellow of saffron rice.
This dish of modest origins, has evolved and in some restaurants has become a far from modest plate of food. It is now world famous and even has its own emoji in your smartphone. The paella emoji was created, after an intense campaign on social networks, by Unicode, who manage smileys and emojis for Apple, Google, Microsoft, IBM and Abode… This was the first victory, and a step further towards creating, this summer, a ‘Paella World Day’.
Some of those ‘world days of…’ are well known and allow a real mobilisation towards a cause (world day against leprosy, cancer or Alzheimer). There are no less than 200 days dedicated to health causes, and they help towards raising money for research for exemple. Some of those days are totally unknown and mostly useless, such as beard day, Christmas jumper day or pillow fight day. Associations, unions, religious or political representatives, all armed with patience, can ask WHO or Unesco to reserve a day for their cause to be honoured.
No commercial brand can be celebrated, even if, in some cases, private companies are behind such initiatives: Yoga world day, for example, benefits yoga clothing and yoga mat companies by organising events and therefore transforming yoga world day into a vast marketing exercise.
There is no doubt a few companies will take advantage of Paella world day : the tourism board in Valencia sees this as a great opportunity to ‘sell’ the third biggest city of Spain as a gastronomic destination. Valencia produces 15 % of the Spanish rice, the restaurant industry will also profit from the craze, however long it may last, that such a day will bring.
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