Just south of Valencia lies the Albufera, a freshwater lagoon separated from the Mediterranean by a thin string of dunes. The name comes from the Arabic word al-buhaira, a diminutive of “the sea” (al-bhar). It was along the fringes of this lagoon that the Moors introduced rice into Spain, not long after they conquered the peninsula in the early eighth century. Valencia was under Moorish rule for five centuries, and when Jaume I triumphantly entered the city in 1238 during the lengthy Christian reconquista of Spain, his army found the Albufera fringed with rice and, growing in nearby fields, oranges, lemons, artichokes, and eggplants. With the rice paddies extending to the edge of the city, according to Lourdes March in her authoritative El libro de la paella y de los arroces (The Book of Paella and of Rice Dishes), the new ruler dictated laws that limited the cultivation of rice to the area around the Albufera to avoid paludismo (what we now call malaria), which was blamed on the flooded fields. The Spanish word arroz (rice) and the Catalan and Valencian arròs both come from the Arabic ar-ruzz.
Rice does grow elsewhere in Spain—most notably, quality- wise, in the Ebro Delta, where the fields grid the delta that juts into the Mediterranean like an arrow; and in Calasparra, in the low mountains of northwest Murcia, where the paddies have moving (as opposed to stagnant) water, forming a slightly harder grain.
Yet it is this area around the Albufera that, although only harvesting about one fifth of Spain’s total crop, remains the most important rice-growing area in the country. Sueca, Sollana, Cullera, and Silla are four of the best-known rice towns. The Spanish government has bestowed protective Denominación de Origen (D.O.) status on Arroz de Valencia. Under this seal, farmers can produce just three varieties of rice grains: medium-grain Senia and Bahía and short-grain Bomba. (There are more than 5,000 varieties of rice—Oryza sativa—around the globe.)
Like the Senia and Bahía, Bomba is a japonica type of rice. The stubby, short grain has a dense concentration of starch that allows for a high level of absorption. For the Spanish way of cooking rice, this is key, as the grains merely act as vehicles for the flavors in the pan. The grains themselves of these varieties taste identical, but Bomba has the advantage of being slightly more resistant to “opening” and losing its consistency if slightly overcooked. For this reason, I recommend it for those who infrequently cook Spanish rice dishes.