Valencia's 'caloret': appetite, rice dishes and rising prices

Valencia's 'caloret': appetite, rice dishes and rising prices

Why do people in Valencia eat more when the heat is at its worst? Spending ten days in the Valencian Community means, for many, an endless succession of meals: paellas, rice dishes, cremaets and horchata. The popular explanation is called the 'caloret', that humid heat that calls for a paella with socarrat or, according to the purists, an oven-baked rice (arroz al horno) or an all i pebre.

The 'caloret' appetite: a need for salts or a gastronomic excuse?

The intermittent hunger has a physiological explanation: the body needs to replace the salts lost through sweat. The theory fits the climate, although no one has proven that rice is the best medicine. But tradition rules, and each school of thought has its sacred dish.

Sky-high seafood and impossible tables

Seafood prices at the Mercado Central (Valencia's central market) are rising faster than the year-on-year inflation rate. At Malvarrosa beach, anyone who fails to book a table ends up with a calamari sandwich on the sand. The combination of tourism, heat and seasonal demand has turned rice into a booming business.

Paella: tourist icon or local heresy

'Paella valenciana' breeds schisms. For the strictest purists, only rice with rabbit and snails cooked over vine-wood fire in the Bajo Vinalopó area is worthy; paella with socarrat is left for the tourists. The controversy borders on the political: criticism of the coalition governing the region, PP and Vox, spills over into the recipe.

The Mediterranean appetite is real and takes no sides in debates. It only understands prices and waiting times. And knowing that, in the end, the best rice dish is the one that is not in fashion.