Fideuà

In this post, I will share a little about my culinary adventures in Barcelona. I tried many different types of Spanish dishes. I enjoyed eating most things, tortilla patatas, gazpacho, salmorejo, boquorones, croquetas, pimientos padron, cecine, chorizo, jamon iberico, cecina and many more. I also enjoyed eating delicious paellas. But fideuà has been the most delicious food I tried during my stay in Barcelona.

I did not know or heard about fideuà before coming to Barcelona. I learned about fideuà when I accidentally found a traditional Catalan food festival while walking randomly on the streets of the city. What a great coincidence!

Fideuà is a dish similar to the most famous Spanish dish, Paella. The main difference is that Paella is made with rice; fideuà is with noodles. Unlike some paellas with chorizos and seafood, I was told that fideuà is only made with seafood. The cooking process is also almost identical to paella. Large shallow pans are used for cooking the noodles, and various spices, including saffron, are added in the cooking process. Some restaurants also add extra sauces (alioli) at the top of the noodles after cooking. Adding extra sauce is not necessary, but it makes the noodles creamy and tastier. 

According to some legends I was told and read, the dish was invented in the early 20^th century on the coast of Valencia. Some claims that the cook on a fishing boat did not have sufficient rice to cook paella for the crew, so he used noodles instead of rice. Others claim that the captain of the ship was overeating the rice and finished the stocks, so the cook started using noodles as an alternative. The cook’s trial was successful because the dish became popular in the entire Catalan region afterward. 

It is harder to find fideuà than Paella because most restaurants do not serve the dish. If you find fideuà on the menu, I recommend ordering Fideuà because it is tastier than paella, in my view.