Recipe: Romescu, a garlicky, nutty sauce from Catalonia

Every winter, the people of Catalonia, in northern Spain, celebrate an unusual vegetable with an ancient connection with the region. The vegetable is an extraordinarily large green onion called the calcot. As legend has it, a farmer "discovered" them in the 14th Century when he found some spring onions that had been left over the summer wrapped in burlap in a dark storage space. When he replanted them in the fall, they awoke from their hibernation and within a few months had swelled into gigantic, mild-tasting scallion-like onions. At the winter food festivals where they are the featured attraction, they are roasted over fires and eaten with a dipping sauce called romescu (or in English, romesco).

Here is a recipe for romesco sauce, which can be used in any number of ways besides as a dipping sauce for roasted calcots.