Every year, early to mid of December, the Uruguayan tourist season (temporada) is opened in Piriapolis with a „Giant Paella“ festival. The 2020 season was opened on the 18th of December 2019, our 52nd marriage anniversary.

The giant paella, a symbol of Piriápolis.

Around 4,000 servings of this typical dish were served in that spa town, which officiated as the launch of the summer season (see Piriapolis beach pic down here).

As every year, Piriápolis once again became the focus of attention and dressed up for the party by presenting one of its most typical dishes: the giant paella, which this year celebrated its 21st edition with a great show mounted in the new part of the city’s port and in front of a crowd that turned out in droves not only to enjoy the paella but also the gastronomic fair, which was held for the second year running. It is estimated that more than 15,000 people, both Uruguayans, and foreigners, arrived in order to enjoy this classic, which enables visitors to taste this delicacy.

The fair featured an intense schedule of musical shows on the esplanade of the renovated port of the city. This event allows the dissemination of the gastronomic attraction of the destination, within the natural, historical, and mystical environment of Piriápolis.

From early on, the assistants start preparing everything for the giant paella, without a doubt the star of the event, while a sea of people go around the vicinity, where the different tents and stands of the gastronomic fair are located, which since last year is done simultaneously with the giant paella. And on the main stage, located about 150 meters from the paella pan, local artists and bands are the ideal accompaniment to enjoy a warm night full of good times.

Around 8:30 pm, it was time to light the eight gas burners of the 7-meter diameter paella pan, which holds 2,500 kilos of various products contained in the paella, while a backhoe waits on the side to start the activity. From the locals, who stand in long lines with several containers in hand, and from visitors from outside.

„It’s a very personal event in Piriapolis society, which the town embraced as its own. I was a mayor 20 years ago when this Paella thing started and we never imagined it would end up becoming such an event. The people made it their own and it became a tradition for this town before the season,“ admitted Enrique Antía, Maldonado’s mayor.

For his part, Carlos Mendez, one of the city’s most renowned chefs, provided the details of the paella. „This is achieved with the strength of the people and a renewed team because that’s also one of the secrets because the team has been renewed with young people and that’s why it’s also extended over time“.

„We are a team of five or six, who in turn have our assistants who have been working for three days to cut everything and freeze it because the products have to preserve the cold chain because there are more than 4,000 portions, which means that we have to look after more than 4,000 people“, he emphasized that he was one of the chefs who were at the first edition in 1998.

Minutes before 10pm, the cooking was over, the usual photos with the authorities appeared and the chefs smiled with satisfaction at having reached the end of a long day with an unbeatable result: a fantastic paella, which justified the long queue of several blocks formed by people in the port area to taste and take away that delicacy in which seafood abounded and whose almost 4,000 portions were served to the public by staff and volunteers from the Hemocentre.

  Chef Carlos Mendez.

Like every year, this event is for the benefit of a charity organization, and this year it fell on the Maldonado Regional Hemocenter (Regional Center of Transfusion Medicine). Therefore, with the purchase of the 250 Uruguayan pesos ticket (2019), the public not only participated by raffling off a motorcycle but also collaborated with the local blood bank.

It is already a registered trademark.

To make the paella, whose preparation takes between one and a half and one hour-forty, according to Barbachanch, we work with a team of chefs from several restaurants in the spa who carry hundreds of liters of broth of their own making, achieving a mix of flavors that is renewed every year.

The rice and the rest of the ingredients are carefully selected, vegetables harvested in a region surrounded by hills, oil extracted from olive groves that grow in the department of Maldonado, unique seafood collected in 25 kilometers of the coast from Arroyo Solis to Punta Negra, make the giant paella a tasty dish that identifies the local cuisine.

The main spectacle is not only to taste the exquisite paella but also to witness the great preparation of the representative dish of destiny in a paella pan seven meters in diameter and with more than 15 chefs (among those who cook it that night and those who work on the previous preparation) acting in unison with impeccable synchronicity. The impact of the backhoe turning over 350 kilos of rice, the watering cans releasing the 700 liters of broth into the paella pan and the chefs mixing the ingredients with rakes are images that remain in the participants‘ minds.

In addition, 200 kilos of vegetables, 300 kilos of chicken, 300 kilos of pork, 600 kilos of seafood including squid, shrimp, cockles, shrimp pulp, mussel pulp, and others, plus seasoning, are arranged. In addition to this, the great enjoyment of an attractive battery of cultural shows, which this year was extended to three days of festivities, and the satisfaction of being contributing to the benefit of social institutions, since the entirety of the proceeds from the sale of bonds collaboration in this fantastic staging has this purpose.

See more on youtube, click on down here:

It’s a local event one shouldn’t miss. If you are in Uruguay around begin-mid-December (wonderful summertime) then try to be there and enjoy a taste of  The Paella Gigante.