Falling-Down Drunk and Reeking of Onions at Catalunya's Hottest Cookout

The calçotada is a delicious and drunken family affair—a time for Catalans to kick back and celebrate the harvest of a glorious green onion. And what could be a better way to kick back than by stuffing yourself full of spring alliums, washed down with a few litres of wine?

A calçot is a type of green onion that looks like a baby leek or a giant spring onion, but it's different in both texture and flavour. When cooked, they taste mild and sweet, and the texture is soft and buttery.

Hugo Prat invites me to an authentic calçotada near Valls, Tarragona—a region known for having the very best calçots.

He's going to show how a real calçotada goes down—miles away from how the restaurants of Barcelona interpret the tradition with their little barbecues. Hugo puts on a calçotada that makes a city calçotada look like a lukewarm tea party. He is a true Catalan gentleman and knows how it's done. His family has been throwing calçotadas in the same country house for years. To him, it's very important that the onion feast is done traditionally.

Calçots from the Valls region in Catalonia are the Rolls Royces of these special green onions. They even have the EU Protected Geographical Indication, just like fancy food celebrities Parmigiano-Reggiano, Gorgonzola, Armagnac, and Champagne. At a calçotada, calçots are grilled over open fire, peeled with bare hands, and dipped in a delicious sauce before getting shoved into your piehole. It's a chaotic and messy affair. When leaving a calçotada, it's very likely that you will be stuffed, drunk, smelly, and covered in soot and sauce.

Hugo says the calçotada is a common tradition for all families near Valls, and for Catalan people in general; but what makes it different for his family is that that they're right in the middle of the so-called "Designation of Origin" area. His family grows them every year just to eat with family and friends. "We are in the land of calçots," Hugo says, "so we always try to follow the tradition as purely as possible. It means we need to take care of the whole growing process in our orchard." The harvest starts around December and continues through April.

Hugo's calçotada is held at an ancient rural Catalan house near the village of Sant Jaume dels Domenys, about an hour's drive outside central Barcelona. The grounds are surrounded by stunning views and include a swimming pool, a vineyard, and olive trees. I met Hugo while working as a writer for adult film director Erika Lust's Lust Films, where he works in IT. Two of Lust's films have been filmed in the gardens of Hugo's country house: Car Sex Generation and A Weekend in the Garden of Eden. Many from the Lust Films team have come from Barcelona in a minivan to join the calçotada.

When I arrive at the house, preparations are in full swing. "The calçots must be collected the same morning they should be cooked," Hugo tells me. He has already gathered shitloads of onions for the party. White wine is served while the calçots are being prepared for the fire. A small part of the bottom is cut off before the onions are strung together on a metal wire, about 50 or so at a time.

The wood used for the fire is made up of vine shoots and branches from the nearby vineyards, normally cut a few days before the party. After some healthy flames get going, the calçots are put directly on the fire, leaving the onions to cook until black and charred. After a few minutes, the metal wire is lifted and the onions are turned over to cook on the other side. Then they're wrapped in newspaper, in which they continue to cook and keep warm before serving.

After much wire-lifting, fire-staring, and wine-drinking, it's time to eat. Some people don paper bibs as wine glasses are topped up.

Salvitxada sauce has been poured up from a huge pot into small bowls, with one bowl per person. There are no chairs around the table—everyone stands up, as if we were at a hot dog eating competition.

There's excitement and tipsiness in the air as the eating begins. The calçots are delightfully easy to peel.The charred outer skin glides off smoothly when you pull it, revealing the soft white part that's deliciously tender and juicy, especially when dipped in the sauce.

Prepared a day in advance, the salvitxada is made with the classic Catalan ingredients: roasted and raw garlic, roasted tomatoes, toasted almonds (which should be peeled one by one), toasted hazelnuts, Ñora peppers, cayenne pepper, and a bit of oil, salt, and vinegar. It's crazy good and complements the onions perfectly.

The eating itself is a glorious mess-fest. People are really enjoying tilting their heads back, munching down onions, chugging wine, and getting covered with sauce and soot. Onion strings hang out of one person's mouth as they chew. Someone else has sauce on their forehead. More wine is gulped. In a world where one is often told to contain one's inner animal, eating in this manner feels very liberating.

To fit in and to show appreciation for my Catalan hosts (and because it's so darn tasty), I eat as many calçots as I possibly can. I eat until there's salvitxada coming out of my ears.

I feel very proud of myself until I'm told there is a course of grilled meat coming up after the onions. Good lord. "Yes," says Hugo's kind mom. "The calçots are kind of like a starter." Uh oh. Hugo has told me about this. The chaos of the calçotada, not knowing when the eating begins or ends—it all leads to a debauched gastronomical experience.

We move to a table filled with grilled meats, sausages, beans, and potatoes. The meat is succulent, and the wine—made from the grapes at the nearby vineyards—is light, tasty, and flowing.

Samantha Coombes from Essex is enjoying her first calçotada at Hugo's country house. "The experience is great," she says. "Eating the calçots straight from the fire is awesomely rustic, and the homemade sauce is incredible."

Cristina Pastrana is from Tarragona and works as a graphic designer. She's been to many calçotadas before and goes to at least one a year. "It's been a lovely day, full of smoke and alcohol, and a good time to relax outside the office. I got very drunk, which is something very typical of calçotadas."

After eating the meat, Cristina and Aleix take a long nap on the grass. Cake, coffee, and gin and tonics are served outside to counteract the meat-coma. Hugo blasts music through some huge speakers he's attached to a couple of trees. Hugo's sweet dad is dancing in the warm afternoon sun, his legs moving in a feverish twist. People fall over—that wine is very easy to drink. Everyone is full and happy. Most people need to lie down and digest.

I don't think I've been so stuffed in my life. And oh boy, do we stink.

There's something poetic about an authentic calçotada: the connection with the past, the beauty in not giving a shit about having shit on your face, the celebration of harvest, everybody getting together, the use of vine branches for fire to connect the landscape to the food from the earth.

It really is an extraordinary thing.