Prose Discourse: Creative Nonfiction to 10,000 Words|Personal Essay||A.G. Sorette|"You’ll Eat It and You’ll Like It"

O:JA&L Prose Discourse: Nonfiction
Personal Essay

A.G. Sorette

You’ll Eat It and You’ll Like It

“I get what people are looking for, and I get that [authenticity] is a valuable thing. I just think that the vast majority of us and the vast majority of times we use that word, we’re not allowing for the realities of the world and nuances of the world to come into play too.” – Francis Lam, quoted in Jaya Saxena’s “What Did Authenticity Mean In Food in 2019”

*The Genuine Article* by O:JA&L staff creative

“You’ll eat it and you’ll like it.” – My grandmother, no matter what she cooked for me.

“How did you make your paella?” Eddie said via text. “I’m thinking about making some for Mary’s birthday party next week.”

Against the backdrop of the beachside mansions that run along the coast of Wells, ME, I was sweating over a beer in a little shack that my parents had rented. After every sip of the ice-cold Miller, my mouth dried out instantly in the swampy air of August in Vacationland. At first, I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Then I remembered that he must have thought of a post I had published on Instagram a year earlier.

“What do you mean?” I texted back. “Like ingredients-wise?”

“I have a recipe, man…as well as the entire internet,” he said. “Do you have an actual paella pan? Is that what you cooked it in?”

“No, I don’t. I just used my large sauté pan.”

“Yeah…I could tell.”

I knew he was messing with me; Eddie is my best friend because of his uncanny ability to keep my idiocy at bay, similar to how power plant workers are responsible for maintaining the ventilation so the nuclear energy doesn’t cause a meltdown. However, I had had enough beer to self-consciously go back and check the post.

I scrolled until my eyes locked into the photo. A beautiful bowlful of deeply yellow rice, almost the same color tone as macaroni and cheese. A few peas were plopped in the middle with sautéed Brussels sprouts hiding coyly beneath slices of chicken sausage that I had added for extra protein.

As I studied the picture for any signs that it was made in a non-traditional paella pan, I remembered the taste of it vividly. The floral notes of the saffron in the rice were held in perfect union with the earthy taste of the Brussels sprouts and peas. The chicken sausage gave it more body, more salinity, and rounded out every bite in this dish. My stomach growled, so I polished off the Miller to pipe it down.

There was, however, a comment that someone had posted that I must not have seen at the time. It was from an account I didn’t recognize. She must have found my post because I wrote down #paella in the description.

The woman said, “Hmmm… you can call it something but definitely not paella! :-).”

I sat there, mouth agape, with my hand on my chest. I could swallow Eddie giving me shit for not cooking things using the full experience, but for a random stranger to have called me out on social media (followed by a complete misuse of a smiley face to punctuate it) rendered me speechless.

The truth was that I did research the identity of paella before I made it. The sacred and coveted history of the dish caught my attention immediately when the recipe popped up in my email inbox from The New York Times Cooking section. I started researching the identity of paella, and it took me back to the history of the dish.

Paella is a Valencian word that translates to “frying pan.” The word is actually used to describe all types of frying pans, not just the traditional shallow pan used to make the dish which it is named after, but it also includes deep pans, flat pans, and even the pans you hit people over the head with in cartoons. This redundancy is unique in that you can say you’ve made paella in a paella. You couldn’t–and probably shouldn’t–apply this double-meaning with dishes like cat’s tongues or pork butt.

Paella was thought to have originally been constructed around the 10th century when the Moors of Muslim Spain discovered rice cultivation. As the centuries slid by, paella was most notably a dish that was cooked by inland farm laborers who basically salvaged whatever they could find and threw it on top of a bed of rice. The first common ingredients were things like tomatoes, onions, and snails. Sometimes, if they were lucky, the laborers would be able to snag a rabbit or a duck to throw into the pot as well.

If I truly felt I wanted to make the most authentic paella, I would have to apply the same scavenging practice the farm laborers worked with. However, there are hardly any ducks, rabbits, and snails milling around the sleepy, hippie town of Newmarket, NH where I live. I paused my research and looked over at my cat who was sleeping on the couch next to me. I considered him only for a brief moment before I remembered the smells that were coming out of his cat box not an hour earlier. The meat on his bones would overpower any aromatics the recipe called for, no matter how fresh they were.

But if the laborers truly grabbed whatever was available to them, who could argue that this would not have been a kitchen-sink style dish? It would have been imperative to be creative when you’re dead broke and stunted peas and brussel sprouts are the only things left to be harvested, like the losers who get picked last for dodgeball in middle school. And you can imagine that their performance is also similar.

Despite this catch-as-catch-can approach to making paella, protectors of the authentic recipes are militant about using the exact ingredients that generations of past farm laborers had put into their paella. When talking about paella that was made with chorizo in his book Catalan Cuisine, Josep Pla pissed all over the ashes of that idea by saying, “the abuses committed in the name of Paella Valenciana, are excessive–an absolute scandal.” Having an opinion on how certain things should be made is one thing, but comparing pork on a bed to rice to a war crime would bring the mood down at any dinner party.

But who’s really to say what goes belongs in paella? In my research, the following ingredients have been listed as common staples to the dish: tomatoes, onions, rice, snails, water voles (which were then upgraded to rabbit, chicken, and duck when the living standards elevated in 19th century Spain), eel, butter beans, great northern beans, runner beans, artichokes (a substitute for runner beans in the winter time), fresh rosemary, sweet paprika, saffron, garlic, salt, olive oil, water…the list goes on.

In this ingredients list, you can catch a wealth of contradictions. Rosemary somehow made the list despite the fact that many Valencians wholeheartedly reject fresh rosemary that’s made in the same dish as the herb-consuming snails. The lower-class Valencians used these snails as their only meat source, but the price of snails has since skyrocketed so that it is no longer a resourceful ingredient. It’s reputation now comes as a special treat that a poorly-paid wannabe cook has to save up for. Believe me, nothing would give me more satisfaction than to walk around with a bag of snails and suck the meat right out of the shells in front of everyone who’s even the tiniest bit squeamish. But the USDA has banned importing live snails into the United States for human consumption. They’re only allowed to come in if they’re cooked, frozen, or otherwise processed. Paternalistic paella. While some passionate restaurateurs will swear paella [with fresh snails] is a dish “to die for”, very few will gush over food that will lose them their license.

There are disagreements within Valencia over what constitutes authentic paella. In Spanish towns along the Mediterranean coast, the dish preparación barroca combines seafood and meat. This seafood version with is the most universally recognized dish around the globe, and living on the seacoast in New England, this source of protein is the most viable option if you’re looking for the freshest meat to put in your paella. However, inland Valencians even dispute this addition. Because they are proud of paella’s history as a kitchen-sink dish for poor agricultural workers, they frown on the inclusion of seafood as inauthentic.

Personally, I have a tremendous amount of respect for stubborn adherence to tradition. But to reject animal protein from one of the most exceptional bodies of water in the world is like brewing instant when fresh ground is available.

It seems the only thing everyone can agree on with respect to paella is that it starts with a pan, and there is rice in there somewhere. This universal truth has jump-started an alternative name for paella imposters, which is both laughably vague and completely non-descript. It’s called arroz con cosas which literally translates to “rice with things.”

If you’re feeling a sense of relief because we’ve at least identified the foundations for this classic Spanish dish in the two geographic areas listed above, you’re incorrect about that also. The pans–literally the paellas–is a contradiction in itself as well. When paella was first becoming a staple in Spain, they used a wide, shallow pan that was thin on the bottom, so when the flames of the orange and pine tree branches licked the underside, the toasted rice would stick to the bottom and create what is now known as soccarat. However, it wasn’t created like that by culinary design, it was a byproduct from farmers who were too poor and didn’t have the resources for anything else.

The pans I own are too heavy on the bottom to create the soccarat, so I did some investigating on traditional paella pans. While I shouldn’t have been surprised, I was shocked to find the astronomical price tags of these pans. In a list that was curated –appropriately enough–by a website called paellapans.com, most of the pans on the site hovered around $60, but there was even one on the list for $500. I can’t, in good conscious, compare my reality of being broke to the plight of the Spanish farm workers. That said, in order to afford a paella for authenticity, I would have to spend the money I would have spent on paella ingredients to afford the appropriate vessel to cook them in. Over the next few weeks, I created a very confusing environment for my wife by mentioning in almost every conversation how stupid burned-up rice was, when deep down I was heartbroken for the elusive soccarrat, which, in an ironic twist of fate, wealthier people than me would be able to enjoy.

The paradox of authenticity hangs heavy over those of us who are cooking to learn but also cooking to eat. You hear the same backstory with dishes like lobster, pizza, tacos, and pho; these foods which were meant to feed and satisfy the working-class centuries ago are now delicacies in the Western world. You invest so much time and money trying to pay homage to the illusory first-time experience of pioneers of these legendary cuisines. But chasing the true “authentic” dish is like trying to recreate a moment of greatness as a cover artist. Instead of being the one to sing “Voodoo Chile” at Record Plant Studios in 1968 you’re the one crooning at a dive bar’s karaoke night in front of 30 drunks, who are loudly asking you to stop. Instead of moonwalking across the stage at Motown’s 25th anniversary show during the song, “Billie Jean”, you’re the one kicking out your legs spastically and walking backwards while the guests at your party whisper to themselves wondering what exactly it is you’re doing.

The mechanics of these legendary dishes are so protected and policed by purists that you end up sacrificing the foundational philosophy that lead to their recreation in the first place: “I was hungry. I found shit that was edible. I cooked it with the means I had. I ate it. I wasn’t hungry anymore.”

The static in my head was still buzzing a week later when we made it to Eddie’s house for the party. My wife Bea strode away to help Mary greet incoming guests, so I walked over to Eddie who was busy preparing all the foods on the table: chips, dips, guacamole, buffalo wings, vegetables, charcuterie, all the greatest hits.

I didn’t see the paella. I only needed to cock my head before he nodded towards his pellet grill, where loads of gray clouds spilled out relentlessly. We walked onto the patio, and he opened up the lid. After the smoke dissipated, I looked down at the 18″ pan, and it was literally golden. The saffron rice popped out like rays of sunshine in between pink jumbo shrimp and brown cubes of pancetta with blackened edges. Tomatoes burst and oozed juice all over the slivers of onions and garlic sprinkled around the pan. My eyes exploded open and my mouth salivated like Niagara Falls.

Eddie brought the paella inside and laid it on the counter. He stuck a large steel serving spoon deep into the paella. I watched the heat escape from the incision in the first layer, and clung to the scent of rosemary and smoked paprika.

Eddie started to walk away from the dish, but I stopped him before he could take three steps.

“You know,” I said. “When people traditionally eat paella, they all eat straight from the pan. They don’t have individual plates but instead share the meal straight off the actual paella.”

Eddie stopped so fast, his house Crocs squeaked. He turned around, his tired green eyes half covered by his eyelids.

“Dude,” he said. “You’re a fucking dork.” He turned and walked towards guests that had walked in through the front door with gifts for Caroline.

I watched him focusing on more important things, then turned back to the paella. The steam belly-danced up out from where the spoon penetrated the rice. I grabbed a plastic fork and took a scoop out of the delicious dish. I savored it for a moment, then threw out the plastic spoon. Eddie was absolutely right.

About the writer:
A.G. Sorette is a writer, humorist, and essayist who has published in literary journals and magazines including After Dinner Conversation, Story Sanctum, Zephyr, and more. He is a frequent performer on the Long Story Short storytelling program, which is broadcast in partnership with NHPR. He also reviews books and film, mostly in the horror genre. His first novel Reason To Be was published in 2024 by UFXO Publishing, and he’s wrapping up writing his second novel, The Dead Clock Five.

Image: The Genuine Article (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2025. Public domain via Midjourney AI.