BARCELONA, Spain — Getting a head start in this city’s food scene got off to a surprisingly slow beginning. When I asked my first local acquaintance, Andi, where he did his food shopping, he replied, “At the gas station near my house.”

Knowing that Barcelona and the region of Catalonia are home to scores of beautiful food markets — like the world-renowned Boqueria — and that the seafood here is so fresh and beautiful it appears to have been rinsed in mother-of-pearl, the “gas station” response was a little disappointing.

Though he’s not much of a cook, Andi’s saving grace is that he does like to eat — and eat well.

“Let’s go eat rice,” he said one day — like it was something he said every time he went out for lunch, “I know a nice restaurant.”

Knowing his penchant for Snickers bars from Mobil, I reserved judgment until we walked in the door at Restaurant 7 Portes.

It turns out Andi knows good places to “eat rice.”

At 170 years of existence and counting, 7 Portes is Barcelona’s oldest and arguably best-known restaurant. It is also a Catalan Mecca for paella, and when I saw huge pans of it heading out to customers, I understood what “eating rice” was all about.

On a busy day, some 400 people will eat at the restaurant, where the line for a table spills out the door and down the street.

It’s all about the rice

Manager Jesús Quilez and chef Carles Ruiz help put paella into perspective. Like Andi says, it’s all about the rice.

“The key ingredient is rice. With the rice, you can put all sorts of other ingredients. It’s like what you can do with pasta or a tortilla (a Spanish version of an omelet),” Quilez explains. “(It is) up to the imagination of the chef.”

This often means that seaside regions like Barcelona tend to specialize in seafood paellas, while inland areas lean toward beef, chicken and vegetable preparations.

Despite the number of customers that come through the door at 7 Portes everyday, each paella is made to order. Though certain preparations can be made ahead of time — the restaurant’s broth is a prime example of this — the rice is remains uncooked until an order is placed. This turns out to be one of their keys to success; both men wince at the idea that the rice can be partially cooked to speed things up.

“Are all hamburgers equal in the United States?” asks Ruiz. He goes on to a give an R-rated explanation that could be gently paraphrased as, “Prepare poorly, and you’ll end up with poor paella.”

Back in the restaurant’s huge kitchen, Ruiz springs into action. When things really get moving, as many as eight paellas at a time boil madly over intense stovetop heat next to giant stockpots full of broth.

“My job is to control everything,” Ruiz says with only the hint of a smile.

Paella wars

To learn how to make paella — considered a “family dish” by Ruiz — at home, I turn to another local expert — Bégo Sanchis, who runs the “Cook and Taste” cooking school just a few blocks away from the Boqueria market.

Paella controversy abounds, Sanchis says — much of it because of the fact that the dish comes from the city of Valencia. She claims her Valencian father will not eat the paella when he comes to Barcelona. In Catalonia’s defense, she contends that “paella” is a word with Catalan origins.

During one cooking class, Sanchis prepares a traditional seafood paella. It’s a slow process that concentrates on pulling as much flavor from the seafood as possible and passing it on to the rice. The full menu includes a tasty gazpacho, a traditional tortilla (or potato omelet), the paella and a crème catalan — the local cousin to French crème brulée. It’s all wonderful, but the paella is the clear star of the show, a gold and saffron-tinged taste of the sea.

With landlocked Santa Feans in mind, she begins preparing for another class at the Boqueria, searching for ingredients for a vegetarian paella. Sanchis explains that even in this seafood-crazy town, going vegetarian isn’t as blasphemous as it sounds. Barcelona restaurants from 7 Portes to touristy places best left avoided offer their take on a vegetable-only dish.

“Paella’s origin comes from cooking what you have on hand or what’s cheap at the market,” she says.

At the Boqueria, Sanchis knows how to get where she’s going without getting stuck in the foot traffic — even with a group of six students trailing behind her. She’s full of market wisdom, like knowing how to avoid being hoodwinked. “If there’s no price on a product,” she counsels, “don’t buy it.”

She’s also able to get her shopping done while giving an effective tour of the market, buying supplies as she goes. All of the veggies for her paella come to the equivalent of about $6.

Back in her kitchen, she dons a snappy chef’s coat to go with her funky pants and puts her students to work.

For Sanchis’ vegetarian paella, the tomatoes are as important as the rice. For the first 20 minutes of cooking, “making paella” means slowly burning tomatoes to create sofregit — a thick sauce that usually contains onions as well as tomatoes.

In her paella pan, she sautés a few handfuls of tomatoes in a bit of oil, stirring nearly constantly until they take on the darker color she’s seeking. She explains that there are four key ingredients to paella: tomatoes, rice, saffron — which she cleverly toasts on the burner in a tiny foil packet — and garlic. “The rest,” she says, “Is completely up to you.”

On this day, “the rest” includes Romano (or Italian bush) beans, artichokes, red and green peppers and butter beans.

Once the tomatoes are sufficiently burnt, she adds the vegetables to the pan and sautés them before adding the stock. When they’re ready — the timing is different depending on the kind of veggies used — Sanchis adds the rice. Spanish Bomba rice is preferred if you can find it; Arborio if you can’t.

“Once you put the rice in, it is forbidden to touch it,” she declares, explaining that stirring the rice would create a starchy mess. She follows her own advice until she tests for doneness by taking a tiny forkful from the top. She’s gotten to the point where she can hear if the dish is done. “It crackles,” she says — and it sounds a bit like that point when you’re cooking something where if you don’t add some oil or liquid soon, you’ll be scraping burnt bits off of the bottom of the pan.

When it’s served up, Sanchis’ vegetarian paella is a wonderful part of a larger meal, but is hearty enough to stand on its own. Each vegetable retains its own flavor, but the saffron-tinged rice combines the flavors, while retaining a hint of crunch.

If the seafood paella tastes like the sea, this tastes like the earth.

Joe Ray is a food and travel writer based in Europe. He can be reached via his Web site: www.joe-ray.com.

 PAELLA DEMONSTRATION

• What: Paella samplings at The Spanish Table
• When: Saturday, July 28.
• The first demonstration — a traditional chicken, chorizo and shrimp paella — begins at noon and lasts about 50 minutes.
• The second demonstration — a black paella — begins at 2 p.m. and lasts about 30 minutes.

• Where: In the parking lot in front of The Spanish Table, 109 N. Guadalupe St.
• Price: Free
• More info: Call 986-0243