The most supportive paella for the disaster zone is cooked 600 kilometers from Valencia

Rice cooked on a giant scale in the Riojan town of Ezcaray, for charitable purposes, will be used to alleviate the devastation caused by the recent storm. And it's not just any rice. It's rice made with heartfelt passion, with the taste of a mother's love.

These nine hundred portions, distributed by the Galbis family during an unforgettable summer morning under the guidance of Santos Ruiz, the wizard of the Rice Designation of Origin, embody a series of arduous and luminous odysseys. The catalyst is Francis Paniego, the renowned Riojan chef who launched a gastronomic festival in his hometown—this beautiful corner of the mountains cradled by the Oja River—a festival that honors the memory of mothers and is therefore named Mama. This experience, born in 2019, celebrated its second edition this year, transforming the entire town into an admirable experience imbued with love in its various forms: love for traditional cooking, the kind our mothers taught us and continue to teach us, but also for Valencian cuisine, deserving of all accolades.

The cuisine of the Valencian Community was the festival's guest of honor, allowing chefs like Dacosta, Camarena, Rodrigo, Sevilla, Torreblanca, and a long list of other equally extraordinary names to carry out their dual mission: presentations throughout the first weekend of August proclaiming their devotion to the maternal roots of their respective creations and their love for the common thread that unites them all. Their role as propagators of the best of Valencian culture.

The other element that testifies to this tribute to the deepest part of our feelings took the form of that overwhelming paella, of mammoth proportions, which aroused the curiosity of the inhabitants of a municipality of two thousand neighbors that in summer multiplies its population almost tenfold, and of other replicas on a more manageable scale: the eleven paellas distributed along a street of the municipality where Ruiz gave a workshop to reveal to those interested the secrets of rice and its preparation. Vegetables brought from Valencia, along with rice of all varieties, were paired for this occasion with pieces of chicken and rabbit that had been kept in the refrigerated chambers of the Hotel Echaurren, the Paniego family business next door to their acclaimed restaurant, which boasts two Michelin stars. This created a gastronomic festival in its purest form, because we are truly witnessing a festival of the senses, cooked according to the Valencian canon, in accordance with the mandate of the saffron threads that also traveled from Valencia to compose, with the rest of the ingredients, an unsurpassable recipe. It speaks of loyalty to tradition, because it did not forget the tragedy that moved us nine months ago, and because it paid tribute to that powerful vein that inhabits every gastronomic manifestation: the storyline that climbs the family tree and culminates in the indisputable attribute called a mother's love.

Alejandra Herrador (Atalaya), with her zucchini cream born under the maternal influence: the mandate to ensure that each dish bears the distinctive mark, the indispensable gesture of authorship. A legacy similar to that which distinguishes the cuisine of Vicente Patino (Saiti), based on the logic that also resonates in the discourse of.

This is equally true of the exemplary Susi Díaz, who carried a message of faith from La Finca to her roots, a doctrine later championed by Ricard Camarena and Paniego himself, and embraced by Begoña Rodrigo, Quique Dacosta, Vicky Sevilla (Arrels), and the masterful Paco Torreblanca, a cornerstone of Spanish and world pastry. The strains of the pasodoble "Valencia" played in the background, and emotion triumphed as magic took hold of a festival born from affection and adorned in its logo with a double croquette. A creation that encapsulates the virtues of the finest cuisine. The kind that springs from the heart. The kind that tastes of compassion for others. Pure motherly love.