In the great scheme of things, rice is a relative newcomer to Europe, most likely introduced to Greece by Alexander the Great when he returned home from his travels in India in the fourth century. The Moors introduced it to Spain when they invaded in the eighth century, and Spain introduced it to Italy in the 14th century, and then to South America in the 17th. Spaniards eat on average six kilogrammes of rice per person, per year.
The grain was first planted south of Valencia in the marshlands surrounding the large wetlands of l’Albufera; in Castellón and Andulucia; and on the l’Empordá plains of Catalunya. However, by the year 1238, following a virulent outbreak of malaria across the entire Països Catalanes, King Jaume I of Aragon decreed that rice growing be restricted to the paddies of l’Albufera. His diagnosis, not incorrectly, put the epidemic down to the fetid, stagnant lagoons where the rice grew.
History repeated itself centuries later in the Empordà, where rice growing in the aïguamolls (marshes) was an important source of income between the 16th and 18th century. “In 1835, when the fevers possessed the region and extended mourning everywhere, Creixença Vilà, after the death of her husband, her children, Paulí, Antón, Climent and Caterina, and her brothers-in-law Narcís, Jaume and Josep, and realising that the pleas of the villages afflicted by the epidemic, began a vigorous protest against the rice crop,” wrote Francis Barret in his essay, ‘Els Aïguamolis and Malaria’. “The inhabitants of Albons, Bellcaire and Torroella de Montgrí met in the square of the last village and decided to drain the land and thus destroy the crop. That way, the epidemic would end in all the rice areas of the Empordà.”
Creixença’s campaign almost succeeded in entirely wiping out rice from the religion, but not quite. A small amount is still grown around Pals, which today has its own D.O. The bulk of Spain’s rice crop, however, is still grown in Valencia. Spain’s Japonica grains (similar to sushi rice) are typically short, round and fat, distinguished by their high starch molecule count which means they swell, concertina-like when simmered in liquid, absorbing flavour while retaining their shape.
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