Little is said about digestion when you eat rice
Edu Torres, a member of the fourth generation of a family dedicated to the cultivation and sale of rice under the Molino Roca brand, is one of the greatest experts on this cereal.
I often encounter this same debate, and it's quite amusing, because no one can explain to me why we order sushi at night but not paella. What's more, we Spaniards are seen as frowned upon, strange, and foreign-looking when it's ordered by tourists, and it never ceases to amaze me because in both cases we're talking about rice.
If you asked me, I would say that the reasons for not ordering paella at night are bad digestion and a lack of tradition.
The explanation is simple: it's the norm, and what I see very often, especially in beach areas and at lower-end restaurants, is the same practice. It's three ingredients that, when combined, lead to you drinking water all afternoon like there's no tomorrow. We've all been there!
What are these three ingredients?
Rice starch, glutamate to reinforce the base, a base that sometimes doesn't even exist, and finally the fryer oil, which is more common than we think and has its explanation, since during the week restaurants don't bill enough and when the weekend comes they want to earn as much as possible at the lowest cost.
This mixture of ingredients makes you so thirsty and bloated that you don't even feel like eating dinner at night.
It is quite possible that someone who has experienced this might say that paella is indigestible and that this is one more reason not to eat it at night as if they were eating sushi, when in reality this is not the case; paella is not indigestible if you use a clean recipe.
And with all this, we've managed to destroy the rice industry in the restaurant sector at night. And in my opinion, these are the reasons.
