Having spent many summers in the French part of Catalonia right by the Spanish border, I don’t remember ever tasting Calçots.
In her Onions that make you laugh, not cry Sue Style turns the degustation of these Catalan Onions into theater with her statement that "to enjoy calçots at their best, you need a ferocious appetite, scruffy
clothes and a well-developed sense of fun. Real enthusiasts only ever
do calçots standing up".
The epicenter of the Calçot world is the town of Valls she says.
Sue Style must have a passion for them as she wrote Not just a bunch of Old onions on the same topic for Eat Words, a food writers collective which seems in limbo since September 2007 (last published piece).
The real way to discover this food is at Calçotadas, festivals that celebrate these sweeter bulbs.
See what the experience is about thanks to this Calçots Festival Page on Flickr by Alexandra Guerson of Building Bridges who was kind enough to let me use one of her photos for this piece.
Have a chance to get your hands on a few of these treats, try this Sea Bass with Garlic and Calçots Ramón Freixa of El Raco d’en Freixa in Barcelona, Spain (adapted by StarChefs.com).
Feel free to tells us about a Calçot moment you had!
Related: Peeling Onions without Crying