Regional Recipes of Sardegna

The products and recipes of Sardinia depend on three traditions, from the coastal area, agriculture and pastoral economies. The Sardinian diet is a fine example of a Mediterranean diet, a nutritional model proclaimed in 2010 by Unesco among the oral and intangible heritages of humanity. Moreover, the local cuisine was also enriched by contaminations and exchanges with other Mediterranean cultures, especially from Spain and North Africa.

Since antiquity, the Romans imported and greatly appreciated the Sardinian garum, a fish sauce in vinegar and honey, which testifies how the tradition of fishing and maritime trade was already flourishing. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the island was often visited by the Pisan and Genoese seafaring ships, while the Catalan influence was present in the west.

Durum wheat semolina, Trigu sardu, produces a type of high quality pasta that can be worked in the most varied forms. Common throughout the island is the favata a single course made from dried broad beans, pork, vegetables and wild herbs. On the Sardinian highlands, the breeding of sheep and goats has always been very widespread, with consequent abundant production of cured meats - pork or wild boar hams, different qualities of bacon, pork loin, sausages - and of dairy products such as the fresh or seasoned Sardinian Pecorino, the fresh or roasted Casizolu, often served with honey; and the Frue, milk sheep's curd.

The malloreddus - in Italian Gnocchetti sardi - is a preparation of durum wheat semolina pasta with elongated shape flavored with saffron, seasoned with Campidanese sausage sauce, or with Casu furriau (= melted cheese and saffron).

The culurgiones are bundles filled with ricotta and mint, or with a dough made with potato, fresh cheese and mint, and the Macarrones furriaos, gnocchi dressed with a cream of fresh pecorino cheese melted with semolina; and the macarrones cravàos, durum wheat semolina gnocchi shaped as small cylinders of 3-4 cm in size, are widespread throughout the island.

Other specialties are the fregula, a dry pasta made from durum wheat semolina is worked in small lumps and seasoned with sauce or used in meat broths; and the Gallurese soup or suppa cuatta, made with Sardinian bread, casizolu, spices and pecorino cheese, softened with broth and cooked in the oven.

Sardinian main courses are mostly based on roasted, boiled or stewed meat. Among the best known recipes there are the porceddu, a classic of Sardinian cuisine, a suckling pig of about 4-5 kg or twenty days, slowly barbecued and flavored after cooking with myrtle or rosemary; and the anzone, a roasted, very young lamb.

A traditional recipe the sirbone in carraxu, wild boar cooked in an underground hole previously filled with embers to warm the walls, then freed of the ash, covered with a bed of myrtle and thyme branches on which the wild boar is laid and covered with more branches, finally closing the hole with the earth and lighting a fire over it.

Other specialties are the Cordedda, lamb intestines wrapped around a skewer or in other variations and the Trataliu, lamb or kid coratella, cooked roasted on a skewer on which pieces of liver, heart, sweetbreads and lung are alternated.