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