Winter Salad Days: The Xató Salad

Originally published in Metropolitan

It’s rare that a salad achieves such culinary status, but the xató is a special salad indeed. It arrives each winter to a fanfare of festivals, competitions and more than a little local rivalry. This much-feted dish is made from escarole, a variety of lettuce that’s traditionally available only in winter, and other ingredients that were, historically at least, only readily available in the colder months, when fresh ingredients were harder to come by. The salsa is made from store cupboard ingredients like dried peppers, cookies and bread, while the three fish used are salt cod, anchovies and tuna, which are available year-round, dried or canned.

That the salad is named for the salsa, or vice versa depending on one’s perspective, shouldn’t detract from the importance of the escarole, which singer and food writer Pere Tàpias once referred to as the “queen of the kitchen in winter”. Escarole is rich in vitamins A and K, folate, fiber, iron, magnesium and calcium, making it ideal for a winter salad, when fresh vegetables are harder to come by. Escarole, like endive and radicchio, comes from the chicory family but is less bitter than its peers. It comes in two varietals, broad-leaved and curly (known in Catalan as fulla llisa and fulla arrissada), the second being finer and more highly valued in gastronomic circles. One kind in particular, called angel’s hair (cabell d’angel), and known in the Garraf by the name of la perruqueta, is often chosen for its sweet flavor. In fact, the outer, greener leaves of the head are often peeled away and discarded for being too bitter, leaving only the sweeter, creamy white leaves closer to the heart. However, the inner and outer leaves can be mixed to taste. 

The exact provenance of xató is unknown, but its origins lie in the Penedès, the coastal wine-making region between Barcelona and Tarragona. Here, five towns make up a loosely defined Xató region: Sitges, Calafell, El Vendrell, Vilafranca del Penedès and Vilanova i la Geltrú. These towns work together to maintain the dish’s tradition and status, and promote it through the region and beyond. A xató route and accompanying website, raise the salad’s visibility and celebrate the culture, gastronomy and local traditions of each town, and the region as a whole. Six festivals dedicated to xató take place during the winter months in the five xató towns.

In 2015, the first annual masterclass for journalists was inaugurated, celebrating the salad and the regional nuances of its dressing. In this friendly competition, each town is represented by a local chef who teaches journalists how to make their specific version of the sauce. At the end, the sauces are tasted and the best is awarded a prize. In addition, the organization, under the name of Ruta del Xató, has created a network of restaurants in the area that serve the traditional xató salad or a tapa inspired by the dish, often accompanied by xató dressing.  

The salad’s status is also promoted by famous chefs who serve two-year stints as its ambassadors, a tradition that began in 1988 with Ferran Adrià and continues today with Moments chef Raúl Balam Ruscalleda, son of the well-known chef Carme Ruscalleda, the owner of Restaurant Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar.