Sunday´s Valencian Paella
I have always believed that union means strength. Assimilating his absence was hard, but the decision of not breaking our Sunday tradition probably made it easier.
For those who love cinema I am sure that The Godfather is in your reference list. I wonder if you have realized about the union that the Italian families have, just like the Corleone´s.
That is kind of how I would describe my family, not talking about the Mafia, but about the union.
My grandfather was the Spanish version of Vito Corleone, the most loved and admired personality in our circle. He had four daughters counting my mother. All of them have two children, except the oldest one who has three. That means life gave me seven cousins and one sister, all of them conforming my little childhood universe.
I was born after the summer of 1998 in a little village somewhere in the east coast of Spain. Long before that date, my family was already cultivating our union around my grandmother´s Sunday paella. This dish is one of the symbols of Spanish cuisine, and it originates from the region I come from, Valencia. I have to admit that paella is such a religion for Valencians, we are very proud of it and we let everybody know. And if you dare to call paella to any kind of rice with meat, fish or vegetables in it, we are going to get offended. Therefore, our Sunday Valencian paella was more than a tradition for us.
I still think of the 15 minute car-drive to my grandparent´s country house, where we used to reunite every Sunday. It was in a neighbourhood in the mountains, 10 minutes away from the city. My dad drove his beloved grey Honda CV-R playing Nino Bravo´s songs, while my sister and I poked our heads through the sliding roof. I still remember the jumps of the 4x4 due to the bumps on the precarious road. The smell of fresh pine and tree resin, dogs barking at our pace. Mediterranean landscape wherever I looked, leaves falling in autumn and the sun burning my skin when summer was coming.
When my dad parked, all of my cousins were already in the entry waiting for their last player to join. Every Sunday they had a new game -usually quite dangerous- to discover. One of our favourites was climbing the Carob tree next to my aunt´s van in order to sit on the roof. We used to lay there with a can of Coke thinking we just reached the top of the Everest, feeling proud of
ourselves.
Our business, future project, was the store-on-the-road. We prepared a table in the border of the road and tried to sell freshly squeezed orange juice or cologne made with the boiled leaves of any plant that we found with good smell.
Sadly, we were forced to cancel our project due to the little success we obtained.
While our early games were going on, my grandmother was already cooking the paella on the patio next to the tennis court. The original way of cooking paella requires a big space, because it is cooked by the fire of burning wood.
Before continuing, I have to say that timetables in Spain are pretty unique compared to the rest of the world. Our biggest meal of the day is lunch, and we have it between 2.30–4pm. That explains our late dinner, usually at 10pm.
So around 2.30pm was the time when the paella was ready. By the time, my mum and aunts had already prepared the table. I remember there were days when the table was so full that not even the dishes of paella could fit in it. We had Mediterranean salad, Spanish ham and cheese, olives, nuts, mussels, cockles… and my favourite, my grandmother´s typical Valencian pie made with tomato, pepper, onion, tuna and boiled egg. I considered it my reward after a whole week behaving well and doing my daily work at school.
And also, by the time everything was ready, our last member of the family joined us at the table. He was Jordan, a one-or-two-year-older-than-me British boy who lived two houses away from ours. After his British 12pm lunch at home, Jordan could never resist my grandmother´s paella.
And Jordan was always welcome to join us, for food and games.
As I said before, since I have memory, I remember having lunch every Sunday together. I think the only break we had was when my grandfather was fighting against cancer, and a few weeks after he lost the battle. We live in a society that fears death, blaming it for being unfair. I was nine years old by 2011, which means I did not really realize about the situation. But as far as I know, the memories were too intense to let us come back to the country house. Assimilating his absence was hard, but the decision of not breaking our Sunday tradition probably made it easier.
I have always believed that union means strength. The union did good for the Corleone family and to mine.
Although we changed the place, we kept the paella and a table full of food surrounded by the people we love.
