The horse and the crop: rice in Valencia for next paella

THE horse and the rice mowing: summer in Valencia.

Summer mowing has been a religious festivity for peoples of the Mediterranean Seashore during thousands of years, with offerings and contests of all kinds about bravery, generosity and gallantry.. The offering of the first fruits of the mowing and harvesting was already regulated in the ancient codes of the Hebrew Bible. Songs, dances, body expression and emulation among young people to conquer maidens and boys was another feature of these festivals of prehistoric times.

We focus this summer on the equestrian competitions of both shores of the Mediterranean Sea. First at the North of Africa, Morocco give us an example. During the harvest of the month of may culminates the harvest of wheat with popular exhibitions of crafts and an increase of human relationships. To the South of Tangier, a few kilometers away from Larache, at the end of may is held a competition of riding horses bareback by young people competing for a doll, as a token of love for a beloved one. The festival takes place as the culmination of the spring and as a symbol of plenty and blossoming of young forces of nature.

We return  to the Middle-South of Spain, to Valencia. To the end of summer and the mowing of another important product in our Mediterranean diet, the rice crop. During the 15^th August at Pinedo, at the entrance of the rice fields and Natural Ressorce Albufera Lake, on the golden sand of the Beach at sunset another similar competition of horsemen and horsewomen takes place. The stage is somehow special, to the north the Valencian Port and Sport Marina and the Avandgarditst Komplex of the City of Arts and Sciences, to the west the green rice fields as a no end green meadow. .

The contender fight for the prize, just a tissue or yellow handkerchief (mocador, jóia or jewel).

For some people, the festival dates back to the end of XIXth century and represents the competition between beasts of burden. According to others they compete to test the speed of farm animals. . Analogies with the careers of Morocco allow us to also identify as a feast of the harvest which demonstrates the skills of young people for a prize in the presence of female fans. Only one modern change. Pinedo allows the presence of the Amazons in these challenges between two or three riders, and it is women who now get the best positions, when one thoroughbred ridden by a courteous rider let her by.

Jose-Vicente Niclos
Albufera Natural Ressource by 4x4
Albufera bike ride,

Valencia Tours and guided Visits: Surrounding rice fields preparing for paella

A brightly day on past mid-January I and a friendly group visited the paddy fields of the Albufera Valencian Natural Resources.

 Peasants let water flood the future rice-fields, from November until the end of January. It reminds me the natural flooding of the Nile that Herodotus and other classical authors describe and I had the chance to contemplate during my visits to Egypt as a tourist guide. 

Both phenomena represent an opportunity for fertilization of the land by the mud and silt. A friend of mine, peasant and owner of an engine-well in the area, Vicent, describe the agrarian labors during the annual cycle:

"The perellonà means the furrows separating a flooded closed-area (tancat)." The tancat is an area of farmland to a level below the lagoon. On November 1 the gates of the "golas" (gates) connecting the lagoon with the sea become closed. Then, this fields are flooded and receive the mantle of humus and minerals rich soil that allow a new year of fertility, without exhausting the land by intensive agricultural efforts. Additionally, the flood marks the so-called Vedats or hunting areas out, in which hunters chase the migrants birds of the Lake, such as mallards and a variety of ducks. After the withdrawal of the water in the month of February, the fields are drying and peasants begin removing the mud with a little amount of water (fanguejar) or with the plough and work the land during the months of March and April with hooks or tractors.

 Then they return to flood the fields and placed the sacks of rice to soak on the banks of the canals or ditches so rice pre-germine in 24 hours. The next last step is sowing "mixed rice". And the last step is Collecting the rice during the month of September with great festivals and bull-running in many of the towns that have marjal or fields of rice in their region."

As I guide, I have oft noticed the same marvelous process in Egypt. With this difference: the flooding of the fields does not occur in January, but in July, and second, in the Land of Pharaohs it is not an artificial phenomenon according to human mind at work. The Nile is the Lord, whose changing phases affect nature and becomes the creator of a new civilization. It is said that the Greek historian Herodotus (Book II, History) tells first about this fabulous River that flooded the lowlands for one hundred days after the summer solstice. Although to Herodotus attributed, it really was Hecataeus of Miletus who called Egypt "gift of the Nile". The annual flooding of the Nile in July and August always intrigued the Greek wise-men who gave fabulous causes. The truth we know at present is that the increase of Nile volume of flow is produced by the African monsoon that in springtime discharge their waters in the Highlands of Ethiopia. This Variations create an overflowing which results in generous and fecund silt covers on its banks. This determines to get generous crops and free time for creating a new civilization, dependent of the sun which is the soul of it, and water, the nutrient matrix of this life. Without much personal effort of their farmers, as narrates another ancient historian, Diodorus of Sicily, "people, freed from work during the time of the overflow, are dedicated partly to festivals and pleasure”, partly to arts and crafts.

Jose-Vicente Niclós

After our trip trough Albufera natural resource park, as I meditated on those things, we

ride our bikes to the small and only slope of the land ( Muntanyeta dels Sants) to admire the spectacular flooded landscape of Valencia. We visited the adjoining Baldoví Ullal (source), one of the most spectacular springs that provide still water irrigation to the fields of a crystal clear water. We returned to Sueca admiring the spectacular sun-setting over the flooded waters, waiting for the Valencian rice planting.

Valencia Tours and guided Visits: East in the West-Arabic Baths

I know one Tourist guide, who had the privilege of being pilgrims-guide in the middle East and returned to Valencia City (Sapain). For him, things of the past awakes back in his heart ancient memories of the common past of arabic times. I am going to submit our readers a tale he told me once:

“Walking through Damascus, during the time of the group purchases at the common Market, I started to wandering through the city Souk and I stopped by chance at the gates of an ancient aribic Bath or Hamman, “Nour Ed-Din” its name, of the 12th century. Still fonctioning at present, I looked carefullyy at his hall in the form of an square andalousian patio ,as men were sitting there and chatting away, a cup of Turkish in their hand and the shisha or oriental pipe at their mouth.

I undress myself and with a simple white towel I pass through different rooms. The hot room where water was taken by me almost boiling with a saucepan and pulled then over the body. Next, in the warm room, I received an exfoliating massage by a specialist of this complex that, not without some scratch, left my skin smooth and soft as that of a child. Finnaly the cold room where I received a relaxing massage by the trainer, who gave me an entertaining arabic conversation, but in an extremely difficult way for me to understand his wise arabic sentences. In the meantime, some of the men present talked among themselves about their business while others seemed concentrated in a deep cleansing of their body, for a holiday or some weekend event.”

As Valencia guide I take some special small groups to the so-called "Arab baths" of the city or “Admiral baths”. It is however a Christian building, built in a piece of land granted by James I in 1313 to the Vilarrasa famimly. The restaured Building, with its quadrangular lobby, gives way to the cold room, with the tub for the reserve of cold water, the room for renting cleaning stuff such as sponges, towels, clogs, soaps and other utensils. And the latrine.
The warm room is the best illuminated by three small domes with eight-pointed stars windows and horseshoe arches. Now covered by soft glass, in its origin came the light through multicolored glass. What effect of hot water, warm, cold, with steamed blurred by some glass irisados in shades of pink and violet. And the hot room where one must walk with clogs and  collect water with buckets from the small hot pool.

The guide tells us that it was a place of socialization, as that one in Damascus that visited my guide-friend. A fine feast for the senses. Jose Vicente Niclos