sole – food by sole

16th July 2025

Malta, or aigua de sibà / agua de cebada / iced barley tea

A glass of iced malted barley, ready to drink

Before coffee became generally available, iced barley tea is what people would reach for as a cold treat in Valencia.

It’s called various names such as “malta”, “cebada”, or “aigua de sibà” or “agua de cebada” in Valencian and Spanish respectively, but at its heart it is just an infusion of roasted malted barley in water, drank very cold.

For the sake of clarity I’ll refer to it as “malta” throughout the article, which is what I called it at home. Although, technically, “malta” is the roasted malted barley. But, you know… language!

15th July 2025

First attempt at sushi a la valenciana (バレンシアのすし)

Unrolled nori, showing the tonyina de sorra and the escalivada underneath, cucumber, carrot

Since I’ve mostly been in this small town for a month, THE CRAVINGS for other types of food have started to manifest. They come from seemingly nowhere, and once they are in your mind, it’s impossible to make them go away, unless you give in and try to placate the craving.

One of those cravings was sushi.

14th July 2025

Romeria de Sant Pere in les Barraques, Catarroja

Fisherpeople's house in Barraques neighbourhood; fishing nets are hanging from the balcony

In the previous post I alluded at how slightly confusing it is as an outsider to determine which festivities and acts that take place in a neighbourhood are strictly that neighbourhood’s celebrations versus which acts are town-wide celebrations.

In particular, we initially didn’t know if the Corpus Christi celebrations we saw were purely a Barraques neighbourhood thing, or just a Catarroja thing.

29th June 202529th June 2025

Corpus Christi in Catarroja, and perhaps a summer solstice connection

Between dances, a nano big head holds the castinets and looks to the side (through the mouth gap). The Moma watches, a giant waits in the background. People look.

Last Sunday was the Corpus Christi procession in Catarroja. I had not witnessed or taken part in one of these since the year of my First Communion, and all I remember about that day was how hot it was, how much my feet were hurting, how long the uphill street felt, and how dirty the bottoms of our dresses were getting.

So it was with great excitement that we learned that there was going to be one here, including the human-like Gegants i Nanos figures that can creep out many people who aren’t used to seeing these type of figures. These figures and their clothes in particular have been restored as they were damaged by the October 2024 floods, so it was a very special event.

28th June 2025

Walking route to the Port of Catarroja

Entrance to the Port de Catarroja, early in the morning. Low sun filtering through leaves and big PORT sign at floor level

In a previous post I mentioned I was figuring out what the best routes to walk to the port were. I have now a good idea AND pictures, as we managed to get up early enough to do the walk this morning, before it gets way too hot to even think about doing it!