All up in That Grill: Calçots
Creative cuisine and classy restaurants may have put Catalunya on the culinary map, but it’s food of a far more primitive nature that provides the real flavor of the place — and this season
It’s hard to imagine that a vegetable akin to a spring onion, charred on a fire and served with nothing more than a simple sauce, could be an appetizing prospect. Yet that is the main ingredient of a calçotada, a feast where family and friends get together to consume large quantities of calçots: a long, straggly, green vegetable that’s a cross between an onion and a leek.
The calçot was first cultivated in the late 19th century in the southern Catalan town of Valls, and calçotades soon became customary in the surrounding Alt Camp region to celebrate the approach of spring. Valls remains the go-to place to experience a traditional calçotada; since 1982, they have held the Gran Festa de La Calçotada, which now attracts more than 30,000 people to the town.
However, the popularity of these get-togethers has spread beyond its birthplace. Millions of calçots are now consumed at events throughout Catalunya and to satisfy the demand there are now around 40 growers in Valls, who produce an estimated 5 million calçots annually.
The rarity of calçot cultivation until recently can be explained by its long and complicated growing process. It begins with onion seeds being planted and then plucked from the ground once they’ve formed a bulb at the base. They are then dried out in a cool, dark place before having their tops sliced off and replanted at the end of the summer under a thin layer of soil. The shoots that quickly sprout from the onion bulbs are then repeatedly covered with earth, which has the effect of blanching and sweetening the shoots. By the end of the year each onion should have produced a bunch of thin-stemmed calçots.
In comparison, the traditional method of cooking calçots is simple; 30 or 40 are strung together with wire and then laid on top of a fire of vine branches until they are completely charred on the outside. (The burning vine leaves creates a sweet aroma, which locals say you can smell throughout Alt Camp during the calçot season.) A romesco sauce for dipping is also prepared by pounding almonds, roasted tomatoes, garlic and olive oil into a paste, before the feast itself can begin in earnest.
Eating the calçots is a delightfully mucky act, which involves holding the vegetable at the top with one hand and gently tugging the end of the vegetable with the other to strip away the charred outer layer. Once this is removed, the soft, white stem is revealed. This is then dipped into the salsa, before throwing back one’s head and lowering the delicious onion into the mouth.
The feast is usually accompanied by generous amounts of red wine from purrós (glass wine-holders with a long, thin spout). The aftermath of any calçotada is a messy table piled high with the stripped-off outer leaves while participants clean their blackened hands and salsa-smeared faces.
Not that the eating ends there. Traditionally calçots are just the first course of a meal that usually includes botifarra sausages or lamb (xai in Catalan), oranges and, of course, crema catalana.
However, there are times when these extra courses are not definitely not required, like during Valls’ calçot-eating competition, which takes place during their annual festival. Adrià Wegrzyn from Barcelona is a ten-time winner of the event, who once chomped his way through the quite remarkable number of 310 calçots (that’s 5.8 kilograms!) to claim the top prize and set a new record.
“I started going to the Valls festa because it was a great day out with my friends,” he explains. “Before that I went to a couple of calçotades every year but only ate the normal 20 or 30 calçots that people do.”
When asked how he felt after devouring so many calçots he said, “I feel very full. Usually I like to have some meat after calçots but that’s not possible after taking part in the competition.”
Originally published in 2008, updated January 15, 2023.