Every September 20, World Paella Day is commemorated, a typical Valencian dish and Spanish cuisine that has diversified throughout the world. And Ecuador is no exception. In this 2022 edition, the World Paella Day Cupa world-style competition whose final will be in Valencia (Spain) on September 20, when 46 qualifiers from around the world will participate to reach the final of this fifth edition.
Representatives from Honduras, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, United States, Venezuela, United Arab Emirates, Panama, Finland, South Korea, Turkey, Japan, Canada, Italy, France, Chile, Costa Rica, Holland, Australia, Switzerland, Mexico, Czech Republic, Germany, Peru, Algeria, United Kingdom, China, Brazil and —could not miss— Ecuador.
Our country will have two participants who managed to sneak in thanks to sending the recipe and a video to the organizers so that they know that paella is lived and celebrated in Ecuador. They are Ines Gutierrez and Tomas Angulo: two styles, two passions, each one with its own business, which could raise the name of Ecuador in the gastronomic world.
Inés is a Malaga native who came to Ecuador for other needs that had nothing to do with gastronomy.. “I have always practiced making paella. It was my mother who taught me to prepare it. Obviously, in Spain it is made with bomba rice, but here I had a hard time finding it; it was found in some supermarket at exorbitant prices, and not always, there was no continuity. So, I dedicated myself to practicing with all the rices that I found in the market… all of them. So, we were on a paella diet for almost a month, until I found the right one”, she says.
It was his son Ibai who sent the video, and Monica, his partner. “Because they are the ones who somehow move in the world of the Internet more than me. Why should I lie to you (laughs), I work in the world of cooking”, says Inés, who will celebrate eight years of living in Ecuador in August.
“I’m actually a psychologist, I even did a master’s degree in the field of education. I worked in Quito, in the student counseling departments, for seven years. But my true madness has always been cooking, since I have always liked it, I have always practiced it. I liked receiving 20 or 30 people at my house to share my table. They told me: ‘If you’re happier with cooking than with psychology, why don’t we try it?’ Actually, I do enjoy it tremendously,” she reveals.
Malaga is known as the capital of the Costa del Sol in Spain. “I went to live in Quito, but I really missed the sea. You have no idea. I was desperate to come to a maritime area, and we saw the opportunity to come here”, says Inés referring to Salinas (Santa Elena peninsula), an Ecuadorian seaside resort where she serves in her restaurant. Chankete.
“Salinas is very similar, within limits, to my city. Well, Malaga has become a very cosmopolitan center, many foreigners, especially Europeans and South Americans who go there for the summer. Salinas lacks that push, but the winter here is like the summer of my land”, tells the Spanish woman, who named her business after the fish that was very common in Spanish waters. “It was a little fish that measured two to three centimeters, transparent. As a child she ate it a lot; but, once its national and international consumption became popular, many people went to eat whitebait, to the point that it has almost disappeared. By 1988 the sale was prohibitedbut some restaurants continued to sell it and the authorities took action on the matter, and the current fines for selling whitebait can be very serious, to the point of closing the establishment”, he explains.
“It’s like a tribute to that memory I have from my childhood,” says Gutiérrez, whose customers like his dishes, especially paella. “The most requested is the seafood one, although it also has fish. It all depends on the season and what is found. For example, the mussel from here is not like the one from Spain, which is quite orange, on the red side, big; here they are grayer and smaller. We also have meat, vegetarian and vegan paella”, he describes.
Expectations? “Man, I would like to reach the final, but I don’t know… I’ll really meet the paella masters there, and I don’t know if I’m up to the task, but I’m going to try, I’m going to try. I am going to defend Ecuador, since four years ago I tried to nationalize myself, but due to problems with a document that was not adequate, it has not been possible. In my country I left my friends, people who love me very much, but I am happier here”, concludes Inés.
With love and Ecuadorian flavor
The couple made up of Karina Iturralde and Tomás Angulo is the enthusiastic owner of Sabor Amar, a restaurant that operates in the city of Quito and where paella has made them famous. “We have entered the world of paella since 2020. We have always liked to take advantage of what we have in our country, and the seafood we have on the Coast is excellent. And, since part of the food in Ecuador is rice, we thought that combining them was perfect, and what better than doing it in a traditional dish, already known, like paella. And since Tomás has Spanish roots, that was what gave us the desire and the need to venture into this dish”, says Karina.
Tomás is a chef and master paellero. “This motivated us to develop the project. We believe that our paellas are among the best. As Karina said, we have good local products and they are not easily available all over the world: Ecuadorian shrimp and prawns, which are considered the best in the world, and combined with those ingredients that do have to be brought in from abroad, such as the rice, which has to be one especially for paella. That is something that sets us apart: we import the Spanish bomba rice, which comes from the Valencia lagoon,” she explains.
It is not the first time that Karina —a doctor who loves gastronomy— and Tomás have tried to participate in this world cup.. “In 2020 we wanted to, but we were a little late to the contest, but they gave us the opportunity to spread our product. We did an event for World Paella Day; It was on the terrace of a building in Quito, where we did a show cooking and we invited people to try a creation of Tomás, which was a shrimp paella with coconut. So they invited us to participate also the following year”.
The rules of the contest consist of several steps. One of them is also to send a resume of the applicant. “You send it along with your recipe and video, and they select. Through voting and other criteria, those who go to Valencia as finalists are chosen. For the Spanish, paella is union, it is that Sunday in family union, and there is nothing more beautiful than cooking as a family”, says Angulo, whose grandparents were Spanish. He specialized six years ago in the preparation of paella at an academy in Peru.
Go ahead and vote at vote.worldpaelladay.org for the Ecuadorian representatives to ensure your presence at the grand finale in Valencia. You have until June 26 to choose Inés Gutiérrez or Tomás Angulo.
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
