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Market-Goer:
Mark Thompson
Rovellon Mushrooms at La Boqueria
in Barcelona
Tourists in Barcelona can't miss
Mercat de la Boqueria, the bustling marketplace alongside the
Rambla, the city's main pedestrian thoroughfare that runs from
Plaza Catalunya down to the port. The Boqueria is not a
farmers market. The vendors with stalls in the marketplace,
which is open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. until 8
p.m., are middlemen selling fruits
and vegetables, seafood, meat, hams, sausages and cheese, from far and wide.
But many Catalonian specialties are on display here. One
of the most prevalent regional specialties in the Boqueria this time of year is the
rovellon mushroom.
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La Boqueria
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You can also buy dozens
of varieties of regional sausages and cured ham -- the latter
ranging in price from $3-4 to $50 or more per pound. There are
also a number of bakeries, tapas bars and other food stands with counters and stools where you can eat and drink
amidst the market stalls and the throng of shoppers.
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want to find farmers selling their own seasonal produce, you've got to
visit one of the smaller, neighborhood markets scattered
around Barcelona. The markets are administered by the
city, which maintains an extensive Catalan-language Web
site, which recounts their history,
lists upcoming events, and has a map showing
where
they're located. |
Side entrance to the
117-year-old
La Concepcio municipal market
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One easily accessible neighborhood market, which is one
of the oldest in
Barcelona (and helpfully has an English-language Web site), is Mercat
de la Concepcio, located right next to the Gracia subway
station, a
couple of stops from Plaza Catalunya. Like all of the municipal
markets, this one features an array of vendors inside an enclosed
structure selling produce, fish and meat, baked goods and other food
items. They are open for business Monday through Saturday, from 8
a.m. until 3 p.m. on Monday, 8 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday and
until 4 p.m. on Saturday. There is also a
place to buy coffee and a ham sandwich or other snack -- and gossip
with the neighbors, if you're so inclined. The high-ceilinged La
Concepcio market building was built in
1888 and refurbished in 1998. The vendors inside are
retailers, not farmers. If you want to see what local farmers are
producing, arrive in the morning and you'll find them behind tables laden with produce under awnings that line the outside
perimeter of the market hall. I arrived late on the rainy Wednesday
morning of Nov. 9, and there were still two farmers who hadn't yet
packed up and gone home.
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farmers set up their stalls
outside Barcelona's
La Concepcio municipal market for a few hours each morning
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Roadside stand selling
calcot onions
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On
Saturday, Nov. 5, I took a drive with my friend Susan, a
long-time Barcelona resident, and her daughter, down
Costa Dourada, the Golden Coast, through a string of
Mediterranean seaside towns south of Barcelona. One of
Susan's main objectives was to find calcots, which are
plump, elongated green onions, a Catalan specialty this
time of year. This was early in the season for calcots. But we found some at this roadside
stand. |
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One of our destinations that day was the 1,000-year-old
beach resort of Sitges, 25 miles south of Barcelona. A small market was
open for business in the alley
alongside the church that overlooks the beach, oblivious
to the wedding underway inside the church that afternoon.
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Pickled olives, onions and peppers
at market in Sitges
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Sidewalk market in Sitges, a seaside town 25 miles south of
Barcelona
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What I Bought:
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Five
types of olives, two types of pickled onions,
and a pickled Basque pepper
These were purchased at the street market next to
the church in Sitges. There were more than a dozen types
of olives on sale, of various sizes, shapes and
colors, pickled in an assortment of concoctions. Some were sour, others were spicy, some were
salty, and others were flavored with spices such as
fennel.
Price: $2.50/lb.
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Calcot, a word derived from calco, which means
"stocking" in Catalan, is an apt name
for these fat, long-legged onions, a
specialty of this region for over half a millennium. (The
second "c" in the word should have an
accent mark, indicating that it is pronounced like
an "s.")
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Calcots
Price: 7.20 Euros
($8.50)/bundle |
As legend has
it, they were discovered in the 14th Century
by a farmer named Xat Benaigues, who one
summer, inadvertently left some spring onions
in a dark, cool place, wrapped in damp burlap. He
replanted them in the fall, banked deeply in a
mound of soil, and by the start of winter,
they had swelled into something never seen
before: the calcot. They are milder than
spring onions, and fatter. Calcots are
typically grilled over a fire and dipped in
nutty tomato sauce, called romescu. They are
the chief attraction in so-called calcotada
festivals, which are held in towns throughout
Catalonia from late November through March.
Here's a recipe for
romesco sauce, and pointers on how to hold
your own calcotada.
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Red
Bell Pepper, Artichokes, Figs, Tomatoes
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Broccoli Spigarello
(left), Cauliflower, Unidentified Green
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I purchased the items picture
above, to the left and below from a farmer who
had set up his stand on a rainy morning under
the awning outside Mercat de la Concepcio, one
of the couple dozen municipal markets
scattered around Barcelona. Broccoli
spigarello is an old-world brassica that I
have occasionally
seen at farmers markets in Southern
California. |
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Leek,
Green Onions, Celery, Green Garlic
Price: $2.30/lb. for
figs
$1.10/lb. for cauliflower
$1/lb for leek
$1.50/stalk of celery
$1.50/bunch of onions
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Rovellon
Mushrooms (bottom)
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Assorted
Mushrooms
These mushrooms are from one of the several
stalls specializing in mushrooms at Mercat de la Boqueria, in
Barcelona. The ones in
the lower left photograph are rovellons, an
autumn specialty of Catalonia.
The mottled orange-colored rovellon is the
most common forest mushroom from Mediterranean
coastal regions of southern Europe. The name
comes from the Catalan word "rovell,"
which apparently means the "inner part of
an egg." But in the area around the
town of Gerona, north of Barcelona, they are also
called "pinetell" because they are
harvested in pine forests in October. Wild
rovellons are especially abundant if it has
rained a lot in August. The price varies
dramatically according to size. The larger
mushrooms are cheapest, because they sometimes
harbor worms. Small rovellons are several
times more expensive. But with them, you've
got a much better chance of finding that
you've beaten the worms to a rovellon feast.
Price: $7/lb. for
large rovellon mushrooms
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