{"id":58572,"date":"2015-10-10T08:28:36","date_gmt":"2015-10-10T06:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/?p=58572"},"modified":"2016-05-31T14:48:08","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T12:48:08","slug":"the-calcots-and-la-calcotada-catalan-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shbarcelona.com\/blog\/en\/the-calcots-and-la-calcotada-catalan-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Catalan traditions: the Cal\u00e7ots and la Cal\u00e7otada"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cal\u00e7otada<\/em><\/strong> is a gastronomic event celebrated in Catalonia. Having originated in Valls, Alto Campo, in the province of Tarragona, the event soon expanded into the other provinces.<\/p>\n

The cal\u00e7ot<\/strong> is a green onion from Lleida, Catalonia. This type of onion is milder and less bulbous than the regular onion. The white part of the cal\u00e7ot<\/strong> can be 15cm to 25cm long, with a diameter between 1.7cm and 2.5cm.<\/p>\n

\"cal\u00e7ots<\/a>The name \u201ccal\u00e7ot<\/strong>\u201d comes from the fact that the trunk of the plant is covered with dirt (\u201ccal\u00e7ar la terra sobre la planta\u201d) when being cultivated, in order to make it grow as much as possible.<\/p>\n

No one knows exactly how cal\u00e7ots<\/strong> <\/a>came to be such a famous dish, but the most common version of the story is that the way it is prepared today was discovered by a peasant called Xat de Benaiges in the end of the nineteenth century. When roasting a cal\u00e7ot<\/strong>, Benaiges accidentally let it burn. He removed the outside layers that were the most burnt, realizing the inside of the cal\u00e7ot<\/strong> was actually soft and tasty.<\/p>\n

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