“Many of those who live deserve to die and some of those who die deserve to live. Can you bring life back? Then do not rush to dispense death, for not even the wisest knows the end of all paths.” These are the words that Gandalf, the most famous wizard in Tolkien's universe, speaks to Frodo in a dark moment in
The Lord of the Rings
. By speaking thus, wisely and solemnly, he was referring to the fruit paella.
Three weeks have passed since Dre Pao, a Canadian with more than 220,000 followers on TikTok, uploaded a video cooking a fruit paella using the tropical smoothie of the commercial brand that sponsors him as a broth. The video is just 30 seconds of seismic shock that caused shirts to rip, beautiful ladies to faint, volcanic eruptions of anger and forty-foot waves of violence that devastated social networks shouting “that's not paella!”, “ to jail!”, or “down with his head!” The tide of rejection of fruit in rice came to bathe the shores of
prime time
television in one more example that the subgenre of making Valencians angry by brandishing the word paella continues to enjoy vigor and muscle and, like the best of Marvel , guarantees some box office success and volleys of fun between explosions.
@drepaoofficial
Because paella can technically be eaten for any meal of the day…if you cook it right 😉… #comidaespañola #bifrutas #paella #paellavalenciana #paellatime #spanishfood #paellademarisco #comidavalencia
♬ original sound - Dre Pao - Snack News & Reviews
In the midst of the hubbub, some calm and clairvoyant voices appeared: to the question “if this happens in one of the restaurants you go to, how would you act?”, Alberto Chicote answers: “The first thing… try.”
The hare with chocolate; bacon and roses, lettuce with cream, and cod tripe with flowers from Pedro Sánchez in Bagá, Jaén; or Alberto Chicote's legendary tempura potato omelet are proof that in the world there are no good, bad, or crazy ideas, but rather brilliant or mediocre executions.
Alberto Chicote knows Alberto Herráiz well, the first Spanish chef to get a Michelin star in France, the third to achieve the feat of winning it outside of Spain. He happened in Paris, at his restaurant El Fogón, in 2009, and he did so by defending a menu dedicated almost exclusively to rice in paella in which several proposals for sweet paellas appeared over time, in the dessert section. Yes, almost all with fruits.
Her book,
Paella
, published by RBA in 2013, is one of the most fascinating and useful cookbooks I own. In it, Herráiz explains in a friendly voice his delicious and erudite way of looking at paella, and shares techniques, instructions on utensils and ingredients, and dozens of recipes that work. In the sweet paella section there are sweet rice in paella with pears in white wine, strawberry, fresh almonds and rosemary, fruit and nuts, green tea and dried red beans, Asturian pineapple, the coconut and mango, the sweet tapioca in paella with cherries, the goat's milk paella with rhubarb and goat cheese, and the one with apples and camembert cheese.
In Decree 176/2021, of October 29, Valencian Paella is declared Asset of Cultural Interest with the category of Intangible Asset. In none of the sections is it possible to delimit or clarify what ingredients, what specific and specific techniques, what cooking times or what tools must be used when cooking rice so that it can be called paella. It is impossible to do it. There are as many real paellas as there are squares, bonfires and times. Paella is a mutant entity that fluctuates with the garden and the market. The only thing that the text makes clear, the only thing that it protects and safeguards, is its festive spirit, its weight as a backbone of the community, the fact that paella exists to be shared.
Use a paella pan 34 centimeters in diameter. Heat it and melt 50 grams of butter in it. Sauté 20 grams of raisins and 30 of pitted prunes, 20 of dried apricots, 2 dates, three dried figs cut into three pieces, a sliced banana, a pear and an apple in cubes and the clean segments of an orange, together with an orange peel and a lemon peel, a shaved vanilla bean, a cinnamon stick and two star anise. Brown everything and add 50 grams of sugar and 100 of honey. Cook until you obtain a golden caramel. Add the banana and sauté lightly.
Pour in half a liter of milk and 200 grams of cream, bring it to a boil, and add 150 grams of bomb rice to the paella. Stir and cook over very low heat. Set the timer on your cell phone for 45 minutes and keep the heat at a minimum to reduce the bubbling to a minimum. Stir every five minutes with a wooden spatula so that a film does not form on the surface.
When the alarm goes off, the rice will be done. Add a quarter teaspoon of ground saffron, remove the paella from the heat and let it cool. When it is cold, cover it with transparent film and keep it in the refrigerator. Before serving it, at dessert time, decorate it with orange segments, raspberries, strawberries, sloes, almonds, blackberries and caramelized pine nuts.
This is a fruit paella. The problem with that
tiktoker
paella is not that it has fruit. Its mortal sin is that it is to be expected, being optimistic, that it is not good. There is no truth, no soul, in it. It is a trick, an abuse of paella for advertising purposes, and taking advantage of the purists' ability to rear their heads as a key factor in virality.
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