Here's an interesting viewpoint from another Valencian that was published recently in a local paper.

http://blogs.lasprovincias.es/fernan...las-no-paellas

Fernando Martínez Castellano - published 1st Aug 2009
(the following is my own translation)

"Three friends of mine are currently putting together, with permits and whatever else is required, an organisation that they consider to be necessary for these turbulent times. They will present the required documents to the relevant administration in order to be able to take action throughout Spain, from the Ramblas in Barcelona to the beach shacks.

The group want to call themselves the "Corrective Association of the Non-Paellas which dare to call themselves Paellas". Yes, it's a long name, but, at a stroke, the message is fully conveyed.

It's hardly worth mentioning that the three founding members are paella lovers. That is, real honest-to-goodness paellas, those made with the local varieties of green beans and fava beans, of rabbit and chicken, the odd snail and that final addition of a rosemary sprig. Each of them represents a different aspect of what surrounds a dish. Pedro, a genuinely knowledgeable gastronome, José María, accomplished restauranteur and the third, Carlos, expert eater and paella base toasted socarrat scraper. They don't consider themselves to be purists but regard themselves merely as defenders of that which is made in the proper way.

And this is precisely what has pushed these three friends to invest part of their time in getting the idea going and ordering the fabrication of hundreds of large stickers. Some of them in red bearing the message "You won't find Paella here", others in green with the words "These are definitely Paellas".

Lately, and curiously enough the current financial crisis has had nothing to do with it, anything made in a paella pan is being classified as "paella". And so we are observing things like rice with chistorra sausage, or a mussel melange, or with poached eggs being given the name 'paella with chistorra', or 'mussel paella', or paella with poached eggs'. Any old stew is getting called paella just as any old brew is called coffee.

The serious side to this, and it isn't about applying some redundant purist sensibility, is that we are allowing a dish, a food, which forms part of the culinary heritage of our region to be trampled into the ground. It's got nothing to do with globalisation and who has the right to use the 'brand', it's about having a bit of good taste. And that's what these three friends are about."