Source · farm

Albufera Bomba rice paddy

Parque Natural de la Albufera, Valencia, ES

Placeholder farm entry — paddies south of Valencia in the Albufera wetland. Bomba is a short-grain landrace that absorbs three times its volume in liquid without going gluey; bred for paella, it has all but vanished and survived only because Valencian cooks refused to substitute.

The reason paella is paella. The rice paddies of the Albufera have been continuously cultivated since at least Roman times, and the Bomba landrace was nearly lost in the 1970s when easier-yielding varieties almost displaced it. A consortium of paella restaurants kept it alive.