Calçots

I love calçots!!! I could probably eat them everyday.

Francisco has been talking them up since I got here. They come from the onion family. They’re like the fat version of those Asian onions you see on Chinese food all the time. They grill them and then you eat them with romesco sauce. I have no idea what’s in the sauce but I’m also currently obsessed with it. Calçots, which only exist in Catalunya, are only available during the cold months so you gotta get them while you can.

Manolo, Francisco’s brother, heard of a place that does a calcotada, a calçots meal. So after the spa, we went straight to the restaurant to stuff ourselves silly. We started the meal with pan tumaca. Pan tumaca is toasted bread on which you brush garlic, tomato and olive oil. Then the waiter handed us a bib and gloves. They had to explain to me that this process can get very dirty. Suddenly the calçots came and it felt like there were endless plates of them. They come wrapped in aluminum foil (they grill them that way) and when you open it, the calçots are all charred and black. Once their cool enough to touch, you take one with one hand and peel it with the other. When the burnt outer layer is peeled, you see a nice looking green vegetable underneath. You then dip it into the romesco sauce, hold it up over your head, and eat it as you slowly dip it into your mouth. The flavor is oniony but sweet and juicy. And with the garlicky, mild spicy taste of the romesco, it’s like heaven in your mouth. Needless to say, I ate a ton. I ate and ate until I couldn’t possibly put any more in my stomach. After seeing a huge pile of black calçot skin on my plate , I took off the gloves and the bib, cleaned myself off of charred remnants and ready to go home and take a siesta.

But no, in typical Spanish meal, it couldn’t end there. Then came the second course: the meat plate. It had sausages and steak and potatoes. I looked at Francisco and said, “there’s more??? I thought the meal was the calçots??!!” I just about died of obscene gluttony right there but I had to persevere. No good Spanish person would let all that food go to waste. So I ate all that I could.

And finally after came the dessert. For some reason, my stomach always finds room for dessert, even if I was super full during the previous course. I was excited to finish off my typical Catalan meal with a typical catalan dessert, crema Catalana, which is basically like crème brulee. Unfortunately, the restaurant had ran out of it. I was very disappointed but I was happy to settle for the alternative, cake!