Escalivada is a typical preparation of Catalan cuisine that consists of several types of grilled vegetables like eggplants (genus Solanum), sweet red peppers (genus Capsicum), red tomatoes, and sweet onions. Once well cooked on the grill, those vegetables are peeled and sliced in strips, the seeds removed, and seasoned with olive oil and salt, and sometimes with garlic as well.
Escalivar means "to cook in hot ashes." Typically the vegetables in an escalivada are grilled, and the dish is served with grilled meats. Mountain shepherds were adept at packing their rucksacks with some cheese and wine, perhaps, and building a hardwood fire near a revetment of their sheep's pasture where they could grill a medley of vegetables. Some writers call this a Catalan- style ratatouille but escalivada more closely resembles the Tunisian salata mishwiyya, to which it may be historically related
