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In simple terms, this is a seafood paella with the fish laid on top rather than mixed in, and is one of the most popular rice dishes in the Alicante province northern border towns and villages.
Top chef from the coastal town of Dénia, José Manuel López, whipped one up live in front of hundreds of representatives from all over the world during a local authority trip to Shundé Harbour, in China.
Dénia, Shundé and another 16 locations worldwide have been chosen in the last few years as UNESCO Creative Culinary Cities – although not all of them are, in fact, cities – and groups from each of these went along to the opening of the foodie theme park and its Food Culture Week festival earlier this month.
As part of its UNESCO status, Dénia has been running educational programmes on cooking, the largest of which is the Erasmus+ Youth4Food scheme.
Based on the Europe-wide Erasmus scholarships, which allow university students to spend a year at a college in another member State and count it towards their degree, the Erasmus+ is a Spanish invention which lets high school pupils spend up to a year studying in another part of Spain – and the sub-scholarship within its framework, the Youth4Food, allows them to learn culinary skills, too.
Reps from all 18 towns and cities visited the culinary institute at Shundé University, one of the most advanced and prestigious faculties in this sector in the region, where students learn to create top-quality Cantonese fare.
The OCT Shundé Harbour culinary theme park includes a massive zone made up entirely of restaurants and cafés, with a shopping centre and huge hotel, complete with a Local Cuisine Museum, cooking demonstration centres, and a whole wing where visitors can tour the world's food.
Its UNESCO Creative Culinary City unit houses a permanent exhibition with pictures and information about food-related projects the 18 towns are involved in, and tourism brochures about what else they all have to offer.
Dénia, since successfully acquiring UNESCO status, has been on a major drive to promote use of fresh, local produce, especially fish auctioned daily at the harbour as soon as it is caught, and fruit and vegetables.
The town, home to around 45,000 people and nearly three times this many in summer, regularly runs a 'tapas route' where customers can get set gourmet snacks and a drink at around 40 participating restaurants for a few euros each and, after acquiring a set number of 'stamps' in a 'tapas route passport', are entered into a prize draw.
Dénia's 2019 tapas route is still running, and will continue until the end of November.
The nearby inland town of Pego, home to around 11,000 and about 12 kilometres north, is running its own, similar tapas route this month.
UNESCO Creative Cities is a worldwide network which gives towns distinctions based upon its intangible heritage and arts.
Barcelona – along with Norwich, UK – have been named UNESCO Creative Literary Cities in the last few years.
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