Valls green onions

Calçots are a type of tender onion with a milder taste than usual and with a small bulb. They are given this name because during their growing period the plant is covered ("recovered") with earth so that they develop an elongated shaped without shoots.

Calçots are a type of tender onion with a milder taste than usual and with a small bulb. They are given this name because during their growing period the plant is covered ("recovered") with earth so that they develop an elongated shaped without shoots.

Calçots are normally eaten during the months of January, February and March, and are cooked using firewood from vine shoots. They are prepared directly over the actual fire and are eaten accompanied by a typical sauce called salvitxada or calçot sauce (made with tomato, grilled vegetables, almonds, spicy red pepper, garlic and oil), or with romesco sauce.

The origins date back to the late 19th century, when a countryman called Xat de Benaiges, from Valls, happened to prepare the onions on the fire. A few decades later, calçots started to be eaten beyond the district of El Alt Camp, where they originally come from.

Calçots are registered as being a Protected Geographical Indication by the European Union.

Normally they are eaten during gatherings referred to as calçotades, where hundreds of them can end up being eaten.

The most important calçotada in Catalonia takes place in Valls during the Festa de la Calçotada on the last Sunday in January. During this hundred-year-old festival, apart from eating onions, three contests are held: for calçot growers, salvitxada growers and calçot dining rooms.