A History of Paella: How a rice recipe from Valencia became Spain’s national dish

I’m going to guess that there’s one dish that comes to mind when you think of Spain. It’s paella.

I’m also going to tell you that you’re wrong. Wrong, in thinking that this dish is the pride of Spanish cooking.

Don’t worry though, because you’re not alone! Thousands of visitors to Spain make it their mission to track down a good paella (which in most places is easier said than done).

So… why?

The answer lies in paella’s weird and whacky history. You’ve got the Moors, the Christians, some Sanksrit, a touch of fascism, and a whole lot of legends to keep it interesting!

Today, we’re unpacking the history of paella and frying up some fun facts in the process. But first of all, what is paella?

Paella: Pan or Rice?

Hold on, because this is about to get complicated.

Before we even start on paella’s history, we’ve got to start with the name. Because paella doesn’t mean what you think it does.

Strictly speaking, a paella is the pan you cook the rice in. These things:

They’re kind of a big deal. Cook rice in any other dish, and you’d have a hard time convincing a Spaniard that what you’ve made is a paella, and not a crime against nature and Spanishness.

Each pan is perfectly round and flat, and no deeper than the distance between your thumb’s tip and its first joint. The best pans are full of dimples, to trap small amounts of liquid and remind cooks of a time when the pans were hand-hammered!

Because it’s so synonymous with the dish, over time paella has come to mean both the pan and the meal inside it!

What’s in a name: Tracing the history of paella

Most lovers of paella will tell you that this also explains paella’s origins. It’s widely accepted now that paella first appeared in the region of Valencia, on Spain’s eastern coast.

Locals here speak valenciano, a language similar to Catalan. Think Spanish, but fried in a paella pan with a whole lot of French.

Paella is really just a Valencian word, the rest of Spain would say paellera to describe the same pan. Common wisdom says this word derives from the Latin word patella (pan), via the old French paelle (frying pan). Makes total sense, given how close valenciano is to French!

The standard history of paella thus says that farmworkers in the Valencian countryside first invented the dish when they made lunch. Chucking a bunch of rice into a big ol’ frying pan, along with whatever else they had on hand (local vegetables, bits of meat, eel from the stream) they yielded the first paella.

In the 19th century, trips to the country became a popular pastime for rich Valencians, who got introduced to the dish! Fancied up a bit with chicken and saffron instead of roots and eels, it became the classic dish we know today as a paella valenciana.

And when the same people took the dish to the coast, the seafood paella was born! While it’s the most famous paella today, the seafood version is really the new kid on the block.

The Moorish History of Paella

I don’t know about you, but to me that explanation always seemed way too simple. Like, really? No one had thought of frying a bunch of rice in a big-ass pan until a few hundred years ago a Valencian farmhand had a moment of inspiration?

Like a lot of dishes, the real history goes back way further than a couple hundred years. And as with a lot of Spanish cuisine, we’ve got the Moors to thank for paella.

The Moorish Roots of Spanish Paella

According to legend, paella comes from the clever way the Moors tackled their leftovers. Servants in the noble courts of Arabic Spain would take home the leftovers from the royal tables, and put them together in a pan with some rice.

This would make a lot more sense as an origin story, since both rice and saffron both came to Spain with the Moors. That’s why modern Spanish still uses versions of the Arabic words for rice and saffron!

Paella, then, could come from the Granadan Arabic word baqiyyah—”leftovers”!

But more likely, it comes from the same root as the Latin word above; patella. In that case, both patella and paella derive from the Sanskrit verb “pa”; to drink. That would make paella a Moorish word, and also explain its similarities with the Latin!

Confused yet? Don’t be, because it’s about to get one step weirder.

Paella: Connecting Spain to… India??

Why would paella just have developed in Spain? The idea of combining rice, spices, and different proteins in a big pan seems pretty simple, so why did it just happen here?

The truth is: it didn’t.

So let’s say that paella came to Spain with the Moors. That brings us into the Arabic culinary world, with some super cool results.

Historians now say that paella is part of a family of Arabic rice dishes that spread outwards from Persia in the 8th and 9th centuries. Paella is the sister of Persian pilaf, and even Indian pulao and biryani!

Making a National Icon out of Paella

So how does a Moorish dish from Valencia become a symbol of an entire country?

Like lots of seemingly Spanish icons, paella became a national symbol under the dictatorship of General Franco. Under his reign (1936-1975), Franco put forward a nationalist and uniform Spanish identity, cherry-picking icons from the dozens of different cultures across the country.

Ever wondered why flamenco, a Romani music and dance from Andalusia, is played all across Spain? Franco chose it, while also ruthlessly oppressing the Romani people who it came from.

The same thing happened to paella.

Why? Franco liked it. Urban legends say that Franco loved a good paella—and routinely went out in Madrid in search of one. Not wanting to miss out on his patronage (or risk his wrath), paella started appearing on the lunchtime menus of bars and restaurants across Madrid.

From there, the dish spread throughout the country, becoming part of Franco’s vision of nationalist Spain.

A Surprising Story: Summing up the history of paella

Alright, let’s get this straight.

If this is the history of paella, it took a pretty unlikely set of events to make it the Spanish icon that it is today. It started life off in Valencia, when the local Moors put a twist on the Arabic dish that formed part of their gastronomic heritage.

Over time, it became the favourite lunchtime meal of farmworkers toiling in the fields outside the main city. Then, when trips to the country became popular just a couple of centuries ago, it got brought into the wider Valencian culture.

And then in the most surprising turn of events, it turned out to be the favourite meal of Spain’s fascist leader, Francisco Franco. And when he started putting together his vision for a singular Spanish nationalist identity, paella got the tick of approval.

So the next time that you tuck into a plate of paella, just think about the weird and whacky series of events that got it to your plate.

And remember: never eat a paella that has chorizo in it!

Read More

Want to read more about the curious history of Spanish food? Check out my post on Spanish paprika (the country’s favourite spice), and turrón (the greatest nougat ever made!).

Selected Bibliography

The inspiration for a post on the history of paella came after reading the amazing book Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers, by Lizzie Conningham, tracing the Persian origins of Indian rice dishes, and their links to paella!

Also helpful were Vibrant Andalusia: The Spice of Life in Southern Spain by Ana Ruiz, and Delphine Roger’s chapter on Middle Eastern food in the Cambridge World History of Food (Vol. 2).