Life in Barcelona

Do you dare try it? If you are lucky and your time in Barcelona coincides with the winter/spring months, then you may have heard of, seen, smelt or perhaps already tasted the “CALÇOTS”. The Calçotada is one of the strangest, messiest, most satisfying, yet medieval-seeming gastronomic experiences in the whole of Spain, or perhaps in Europe! In keeping with my last post on sensational Spanish dietary habits, such as diving into buckets of olive oil and concocting amazing egg omelettes, I think it is a highly appropriate moment to also mention the succulent, tender, barbequed, sauce-covered, sweet spring onion shoots that stimulate the Spanish taste buds and give the rest of us something to only dream of trying! Try and suggest a ‘leek grilling party’ in your home country, amongst your friends and see how many people turn up!? Do the same in Spain and you will have your friends, their friends and the whole population of your street banging on your door, with an accompanying bottle of ‘vino tinto’ in their arms!

I don´t think that there is a translation for the word “Calçot,” but if you think of a ‘baby-leek’ or a leek-shallot-onion, then you´re not far off. The long vegetable is pulled from the ground and thrown on top of a grill, which sits upon an open air fire, usually made from vine wood (a bbq will do just nicely also!). The vegetable is not normally washed and great clumps of mud stick to the outside of the calçots, as a sizzling, sweetish aroma fills the air and nearby Spanish friends are softly moaning, “ahhhhhh, calçots” and getting ready to pounce, in order to grab their share before the greedy ones get there!

You cannot eat your calçots and keep up appearances at the same time! If you are eating them in a restaurant, then you are normally given a bib and gloves, and, if you don´t want to end up wearing your food or looking as though you just survived a mini-war, then you usually put them on! You then pick up your long, thin, wiggly, bendy, delicious baby leek at the top and, holding it with one hand, gently pull from the bottom end of the calçot with your left hand. As you pull, the muddy, outer layer of the vegetable will slide off, revealing a shining white soft stem of oniony-heaven! You must then dip it into a sauce made from pepper, almonds, garlic and oil –  romesco sauce. If you have got this far without dropping your food, or leaving half of it stuck in the bottle of romesco, then you now need to turn your head skywards and then lower the calçot directly into your mouth. Repeat this process until you feel you are simply turning into a calçot and you can then wash it all down with a few glasses of red wine! Maybe you should then go to scrub your hands and face to remove the mud and olive oil and you can then return for the next course!

Calçots are eaten in massive quantities during the ‘fiesta del calçot’ – which officially starts on the last Sunday in January. The streets of Barcelona are converted into a party of vine wood open fires and rows of tables and you see people dangling their roasted leeks into their mouths for several weeks running!
- Heidi -

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Festivities, Food & Wine, General Barcelona, Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.