30,000 enjoy world's biggest calçot celebration in Valls

The southern municipality of Valls, popularly known to be the home of calçots, Catalonia's iconic, long, green, tender, and sweet onions, has hosted its annual massive calçot festival

In an especially shiny and warm January Sunday, and amid a mass BBQ-style atmosphere, visitors were able to taste an authentic calçotada for just €15 per ticket.

Valls welcomed over 30,000 attendees to its Gran Calçotada throughout the weekend, with around 4,000 portions dished out, a slightly higher number than last year.

While this is a remarkable figure, it is just a tiny portion of the 20 million calçots farmers expect to harvest this season.

One of the biggest day of the year in Valls, the capital of the Alt Camp county and also the cradle of Catalonia's quintessential human towers tradition, or 'castellers', Sunday was all about long onions.

Tasting areas, farmers and eaters contests, showcases of how to cook calçots, a concert, cultural visits, and parades of local cultural characters were just part of the menu. Yet, the main and most beloved dish were calçots.

The 44th Edition of the so-called Gran Festa de la Calçotada de Valls were also an effort to make sure the tradition continues, since social media, an app with information on producers and a music festival held in November, Calçofest, hope to ensure young generations are also part of the day.

Calçot eating contest

One of the maddest activities of the day was the calçot-eating contest, which reached its 40th edition. 32-year-old Xavier Currius, from Santa Eulàlia de Berga (over 150 km away from Valls) won the event, after gobbling down 109 calçots, or, 3.97 kg.

Yet, while Currius' stomach may disagree, victory was more within reach this year.

Current regulations prevent the winner of one year from taking part the following year, so the calçot-eating phenomenon Adrià Wegrzyn, who has prevailed on 13 occasions in the past two decades, could not take part and will have to wait until at least 2027 to add to his titles by devouring long onions once more.

How to eat calçots

Calçots can get messy. They are eaten in a specific way, by holding the green leaves in the center and peeling off the sooty outermost layer.

Dip them in the orange 'salvitxada' or 'salsa de calçots' sauce, and lower them into your mouth from above. Bibs, called 'pitets', are usually provided in restaurants and sometimes gloves are too, but you should still expect to get dirty.

One of the most important aspects of calçots is the ritual of eating them. These barbecued onions served on terracotta tiles are not commonly eaten at home, but more so as the centerpiece of events known as calçotades, popular social gatherings with friends and family that usually take place from January to March.

Listen to this episode of our podcast Filling the Sink on Catalonia's onion craze to learn more about calçots.