River Ebro Babble

When you come to live in Catalonia, one thing you soon notice is the universal celebration of  food! There are fiestas  dedicated to cherries, peaches, rice, wine, artichokes (I kid you not!) oysters, oranges – in fact virtually anything that is grown and harvested! During the winter months there is a very special product that is unique to Catalonia and originated here in Tarragona. It is the Calçot.  A calçot (pronounced calsot)  is a long thin onion – a bit like a spring onion but about the size of a small leek! A “Calçotada”  is the event when people get together to eat them – lots of them!  There is no special fiesta day, in the case of the calçot there is a whole season!  From November through to March tons and tons of calçots are eaten with a traditional sauce made from roasted almonds, hazlenuts, tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and pimiento ground together with a pestle and mortar.

Sometimes you will see calҫots  offered on menus in restaurants. Indeed, the first time we saw and ate these tasty onions was in a restaurant before we moved out here permanently.  Since we have lived here  I am pleased to say that we have discovered the BEST and REAL way to eat calçots –  outdoors with a gathering of friends, on a sunny winters day, cooking them over an open fire and sharing lots of other food and wine!

How to Cook and Eat Calçots:
The green tops of the onions and the roots are trimmed a little but there is no need to wash them. They are then placed in neat rows on a wire rack and roasted over hot coals until tender and the outsides are black and charred. Next bundles of them are wrapped in newspaper to keep them warm and traditionally they are served on a tile.
Now the best bit!
First of all remember that a calçotada is not the place for anyone who is overly concerned about their appearance because you are probably going to end up looking a mess!
With one hand you hold the onion at the top and with the other you pull at the bottom and remove the blackened outer layer. This gets your hands nice and black!  Then dip the onion in the sauce, getting it coated liberally, throw back your head, lower the onion into your mouth and chomp your way up it! It is delightfully messy! By the time you’ve eaten your way through a dozen or so your hands and face are saucy and sooty and the table is piled high with onion remains.

And if you haven’t got yourself messy enough there’ll always be someone only too glad to smear their sooty fingers on your face!

Of course although the calçots are the star of the show there is more to eat at a calçotada than simply roasted onions. The tables are usually laden with a  selection of salads, tortilla, jamon, olives, bread, allioli (garlic mayonnaise) and wine.  And after the calçots have been cooked the burning coals are used to cook sausages, pork chops, red peppers… whatever people have taken along!

A humble onion – who would think that you could have a day dedicated to eating it! For me this is the charm of the Catalan way of life- the enthusiasm and celebration of life’s simple pleasures, eating and drinking and being with friends – which after all is what a calҫotada is all about.
As the Catalans say “Mes que una ceba! It is more than just an onion!