Zuppa di pesce(fish soup)

This dish prepared with a wide variety of fish in a tomato based stock and very slightly piccante is a special treat. To have a really good one there needs to be a fairly large number of diners as the wider the variety of fish the better the soup becomes. It is a speciality that is not found easily and is usually prepared for a special festa.

Spaghetti ai Ricci (spaghetti with sea urchin sauce)

This is a dish you will find on the manu of the best restaurants in early spring, the sea urchins are collected when the sea is cold and calm in January February and March, in this period the Urchins are full of roe and it is this roe that is used to make the sauce. the taste is that of the shoreline the smell of ozone, the taste of sea breeze concentrated and captured in a sauce. Incredible. the urchin roe is often eaten simply scooped out and spread on fresh crusty bread.

Azzada (cat shark in Garlic and Tomato sauce)

This dish has its origins in the times before refridgeration. The cat sharks or Dogfish were cought along mainly for their skin which was taken off dried and used as sandpaper for the artisans working in wood. this meantthey were left with an oversupply of good fish without refridgeration they needed to find another method of preserving the fish so as it was not wasted. The method they used was to put it in a tomato sauce that was incredibly rich in garlic. The dish is almost always served cold.

Mailetto (roast suckling pig)

This is the traditional celebration food in Sardinia for any important special occassion this dish will be prepared. The pigling is killed very youngwhen it arrives at around 6 to 8 kilos it is then slowly roasted on an open wood fire which takes around 3 - 4 hours. The meat is then cut into pieces using pruning shears and seved traditionally on a piece of cork bark and on a bed of mirtle branches.

Pecora bollitta (boiled mutton)

Again a very basic dish but for anyone who has forgotton the taste of or even nowadays not tasted mutton it is utterly morish. The dish is prepared using whole or half of a mature sheep the carcass is roughly chopped into pieces and put into a huge pan of boiling water, some of the tender hock meat is saved for preparing the pasta sauce, the chopped meat is boiled for several hours with whole onions carrots and celery. The pasta used with this dish is "Malleradus" a small gnochi pasta formed as small shells, this is boiled in the stock from the mutton and a sauce is prepared using more of the stock and chopped tomatos much reduced. There is not much meat on the bones but what there is is packed with flavour.

Cinghiale (wild boar)

Hunting is still a great passion of the Sardo's and the countryside is full of wild boar that are still the indiginous boar of the island smaller than on the mainland and very fierce, hunters are quite often gored and occassianaly killed while hunting boar. This is a dish you will hardly ever see on a restaurant menu (you may find farmed boar but that is completely different) if you are luck enough to know a hunter and get invited to a festa you will get to taste the genuine article. Mostly stewed the meat is tender and dark and has a rich gamey taste.

Aragosta

Seadas or Sebadas

The sardinians are not big on deserts however you will find this traditional desert on most menu's. It is a large pasta ravioli stuffed with young sheeps cheese mixed with lemon juice and zest that is then deep fried and served coated with eitherthe superb local honey or sprinkled with sugar.

Zeppole

This is one of the traditional sweets made for the Carnival in February it is a batter mix flavoued with either lemon or orange formed into a continous sausage and fried then sprinkled with sugar.

Ricotta e abba'mele

This dish consists simply of a good ricotta cheese drizzled with "abba mele" a thick dark syrup made by boiling the empty honey comb, after the honey has been spun off, it is boiled for a long while and the wax skimmed from the top as it rises to the surface the mixture boils down to a black syrup with an incredible taste which when married with the smooth ricotta is irresistable.

Pecorino

This sheeps milk cheese is the most widely seen and comes in a range of tastes from the mild taste of the fresh cheese to the medium and aged variaties, the best of which can be compared favourably with a good Parmnesan.

Cacciocavallo

This is a cows milk cheese of subtle flavour that is bought in its form of a large tear drop and is delicious just chopped into pieces or can also be melted in a frying pan with a little white wine or Malvasia.

Formaggio Marcio (rotten cheese or worm cheese)

This famous traditional cheese of the hill farmers of Sardinia is now threatened by interference from the beurocratic Hitlers in Brussels and can be bought only under the counter direct from a Shepherd who has made it in house. It is a complete Pecorino cheese unpasturised where the lavea of the milk fly has been allowed and encouraged to develop. the cheese is then opened and from the centre outwards the small worms work the cheese and turn it into a cream that is scooped out (with or without worms) and spread onto fresh bread. The squeemish might find the idea a little distasteful however I can assure you that the piccante cream on bread is absolutely deliscous.