Day 27 - Calçot Edition

For a while now, I have desperately wanted to participate in a calçotada, which is something only done in Catalunya and only in the spring. Picture that in Februaryish, the sun starts shining a little more, the early spring flowers start to poke up out of the ground, and townspeople all over the province pull large spring onions (calçots) out of the ground, gather over open fires, grill the onions on large grates placed directly in the flames, then peel them, dip them in romesco sauce and eat them communally accompanied by shots of vermouth, music and socializing.

In all of these years of travelling to Spain, this is the only trip that found me in Catalunya in more or less calçot season so, determined to do this thing, I set out to find a calçotada. The first challenge I discovered was that calçotadas, for which one needs tickets purchased in advance, are organized by neighborhood associations, which are basically a bunch of retired men who sit around all day playing dominoes. This means that there are no online ticket sales or credit cards. You have to go to the neighborhood association, interrupt the domino game and buy tickets with cash. So I went to some neighborhood associations and learned all the different ways to say “we’re sold out” in Spanish.

There are restaurants that serve calçots, but that really wasn’t the vibe I was looking for, so I spent hours scouring the web to find a suitable calçotada, aware of the fact that time was ticking because once you get into March, the season starts to peter out.

On the verge of tapping out, I was thrilled to find a farmer’s market in another part of Barcelona that was going to cook and serve calçots in the traditional way last Saturday starting at 11:00 and going all afternoon. I counted the minutes to Saturday morning and showed up at 11:30, to find this.

But the guy, sensing the desperation in my voice, told me that they were going to be there one more time for the season this past Saturday and that if I showed up at around 10:00 to get in line, some calçots would surely be there for me (with the added benefit that Martha would be there too).

Long story short, everything worked out for the best and my dream came true. Was it an amazing experience or just some crappy grilled onions dipped in canned sauce? No reason it can’t be both.