Sunday paella in Valencia
On Sunday in a Valencia house, a grandmother cooks paella with chicken, rabbit, green beans, and saffron. A girl asks for seafood, and the rice waits until the broth is hot.
La paella del domingo
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About this article
What you'll learn
Present tense in a family kitchen: putting food in the pan, asking short questions, and saying no.
On Sunday, in a house in Valencia, in eastern Spain, a grandmother cooks paella while a girl and an uncle wait. The pan is wide and shallow, with two handles, and it has the same name as the dish. She puts in chicken, rabbit, and green beans, and today also garrofón, a large bean that is not always used. Valencian paella also has rice and saffron. The girl wants seafood, but this paella has no fish, and rice with seafood is a different dish. The uncle tries to add the rice before the broth is hot. The grandmother stops him, then adds the rice and the saffron, which turns the rice yellow. In this house paella is not everyday food. On some Sundays the family eats it together.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
Mi plato favorito es
newmy favorite dish is
Mi plato favorito es + noun. Favorito agrees with the noun: mi comida favorita, mis platos favoritos.
The sentence you need to answer the question at the end of the article.
un plato muy famoso de España
newa very famous dish from Spain
Muy famoso de España uses adjective + de + country to give the origin.
Describes paella as a cultural symbol from the opening.
conocido en todo el mundo
newknown all over the world
Conocido works like an adjective after ser: es conocido en todo el mundo.
Highlights paella's international popularity.
viene de Valencia
newcomes from Valencia
Viene de + place is the fixed pattern for origin.
Answers the article's main question about where paella comes from.
Hace mucho tiempo
newa long time ago
Hace mucho tiempo introduces historical context in the past.
Transition to the story about Valencia farmers.
un plato para compartir
newa dish to share
Para compartir uses an infinitive after para to show purpose.
Explains why paella is culturally important.
se reúnen para comer
newthey gather to eat
Se reúnen para comer combines a reflexive verb + para + infinitive.
Typical scene: family and friends around the paella.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Seafood
mariscos
seafood
Mariscos are shellfish and other seafood, not fish. The Valenciana has none.
Key word for telling the types of paella apart.
Tasty
rico
tasty, delicious
With food, rico means tasty, not rich. Está muy rico is what you say about a good dish.
A false friend: the meaning a learner expects first is the wrong one here.
Saffron
azafrán
saffron
Azafrán gives the rice its color and flavor. It is the classic paella spice.
One of the most recognizable ingredients in the text.
Farmers
agricultores
farmers
Los agricultores are the farmers who cooked the first paellas.
Main actors in the origin story.
Vegetable gardens
huertos
vegetable gardens
Un huerto is a small plot for growing vegetables. The first paella used what grew there.
Shows that paella grew out of local produce.
Frying pan
sartén
frying pan, skillet
The large sartén where the rice cooks is what gave the dish its name.
Explains where the name of the dish comes from.
Rabbit
conejo
rabbit
Conejo is rabbit, a real ingredient of the Valencian paella, together with chicken.
Surprising for many readers and central to the original recipe.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Question de dónde
¿De dónde viene la paella?
where does paella come from?
¿De dónde + verb? asks about origin. It appears three times: about paella, about the ingredients, and about your own dish.
The question the whole article answers, and one you can ask a person.
Lleva and no lleva
La Paella Valenciana no lleva marisco
Valencian paella does not contain seafood
With a dish, llevar means to contain: lleva arroz, no lleva marisco. The negative is simply no + lleva.
Llevar appears five times in the text, in questions, statements and negatives.
Vamos a + infinitive
Hoy vamos a aprender sobre un plato muy famoso
today we are going to learn about a famous dish
Vamos a + infinitive expresses a plan for the near future.
Structure from the article's first sentence.
Se llama
Esta sartén se llama paella
this pan is called paella
Llamarse is a reflexive verb: me llamo, te llamas, se llama. With a thing it gives its name: se llama paella.
The same verb you use to say your own name, here naming the pan and the dish.
Cocinaban: the past for habits
cocinaban arroz con productos del campo
they cooked rice with produce from the fields
Cocinaban and usaban are imperfect forms: what people did regularly in the past. Cocinar becomes cocinaban, usar becomes usaban.
The imperfect appears three times here. Without it the history section reads as if it were present.
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