My closest brush with a Valencian paella was when I was invited by the Spanish Government to Barcelona to give a talk on ‘promoting tourism through social media’ at the Casa Asia Conference. Just as there are debates on whether there should be potatoes in biryani or whether such a thing as chicken, let alone vegetarian, biryani exists, there are long debates in Spain on whether peas should feature in a paella or whether it should be a seafood only dish or a mixed (seafood and meat) dish or a meat dish with no seafood!My first taste of a paella in Spain (I had had it in Mumbai’s Bandra before) was in the Mercado San Miguel food market in Madrid which would be the equivalent of going to Dilli Haat to try out Assamese food. The Valencians believe that only their paella is genuine just as those in Hyderabad believe that only theirs is the ‘authentic’ biryani or just as Kunal Vijayakar often declares that only the Bombay biryani is the real biryani and just as I will tell you that the biryani only came into its own in Calcutta when potatoes were added to it. Passions evoked by paella in Spain can be compared with those generated by biryani in India. “Just like a pulao,” said Harshad’s mother, who cooks quite a lovely Malvani prawn masala herself to go with a Maharashtrian masala bhaat (a sort of spicy pulao).What they had been served infact, was a paella (pronounced: pa-ee-aa). Instead they were served a yellow coloured rice with prawns and chicken in it. So the group went and spoke to the tour manager who agreed that their next meal would be Spanish.Sure enough, the next day when they came down to dinner, they saw that the daily butter chicken, dum aloo, dal tadka, jeera rice, roti and gulab jamun weren’t there.
While in Spain, Harshad’s parents wanted to try out at least one local meal. Packages like this are popular among folks who want to discover new places but prefer the familiarity of home food.
So they went on a group tour which provided Indian meals through the trip. They were keen to explore the country but were worried about the food there.
Rajadhyaksha, went to Spain on a holiday recently.
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