A land of many flavors, simple and true as his people

The most immediate way to know a people is often to get closer to the gastronomic traditions.

They tell the farming traditions through the products, the ministry or a place of marinara.

In the south of Sardinia, through the fertile agricultural plain of Campidano, sheep farming in the inland mountainous and coastal areas, fishing, the three culinary cultures, although distinct from net social and geographical boundaries, are often in contact merging their characteristics with excellent results.

The traditional food

The bread always the protagonist undergoes transformations: stale is used for suppas; large slices dipped in boiling water are drained and seasoned with tomato sauce and pecorino cheese. The bread dipped in beef broth and seasoned with fresh pecorino cheese, sour times, gave rise, put in the oven, to know suppa cooked.
The most common pasta is made with flour or durum wheat: with work similar to that of Kuskus get Fregula know, balls that are put into the oven and used for the preparation of soups, or served with sauce and cheese, Fregula incasada ,. Sulcitana island of San Pietro with the same processing is prepared cascà, much closer to traditional Arab dish to almost the same name.
With pieces of semolina pasta passed on a basket of thin reeds are obtained malloreddus, small dumplings that in the vast reaction Campidano are seasoned with a sauce made with fresh sausage and fennel; culungionis are the ravioli stuffed with cheese, ricotta or anything that is flavored with meat sauce and cheese; panadas are the cakes of dough stuffed with meat and lard, vegetables, eel.
The main courses in South Sardinia prefer the use of meat, fish, although in recent years, has found a place on the board of the Sardinians, even in areas not related to fishing activities.
The meat is usually cooked roast goats, lambs, piglets, cows, calves and lambs as well, not forgetting the game, are the protagonists of Sardinian cuisine. The cooking is usually long and the fire must be powered and controlled carefully because the cooking takes place slowly. Its widespread use throughout Sardinia is known stiddiadura, namely the use of a piece of bacon to bring down on the meat drops hot fat tended to improve the flavor and golden roast.
In areas of sea fish is, however, abundantly used since ancient times, while not electing valuable species. One of the typical dishes of Cagliari is in fact knows burrida, dogfish seafood prepared with peeled and marinated in vinegar with the addition of garlic and chopped nuts. Redfish, capons, eels, octopus, squid, mussels are some of the fish used to prepare cassola know. Soup taste great because it uses only the freshest fish, has variations depending on the locality in which it is prepared.
The mullet, gray mullet or tuna roe is another important product of the sea: you can eat, cut into thin slices soaked in olive oil or grated over spaghetti with oil and garlic. In the past it was very common use of smoked fish.
Side dishes are ideal to accompany these meals are the artichokes with thorns and without intense flavor, tomatoes, various types of rural thistles, wild asparagus, beans, mushrooms. Among the spices to flavor the dish a place of honor with saffron, myrtle, laurel and fennel.

Bread. Food for excellence.

The ritual, the forms, the typological differentiation within the territory of the elect indispensable element of Sardinian cuisine. They were surveyed in Sardinia over 400 different varieties, related to production activities in each area, the social classes that produce, on occasion, which determines the shape and type. So there is a daily bread, a loaf of party bread to remember the dead, a loaf of bread for the Passover celebration.

The bread ovens

The oven is accurate in every detail. It is built with clay and lined with refractory material. It ‘usually domed or “ball”, with a small mouth, feeds on twigs light, well seasoned, very often from mondature vineyards. The “cleaning” of the oven before the introduction of the precious food is made with the use of brooms prepared with herbs that give intense to give the bread a specific fragrance. It ‘s especially the rock rose, present in Mediterranean vegetation, the shrub used for brooms.
The women watched cooking through the use of a mirror which revealed the contents of the oven.

Differenze formali e tipologiche

The bread in Sardinia is art. Women in the production of this food use their imagination that binds the form to use. The functional form has daily bread: bread products in the south are of large size, well-leavened, from the thick crust. This bread is called civraxiu (from the Latin cibarium, as if the food par excellence). It can be kept in special baskets covered with cloth to keep it as soft after some days. From this basic bread in various subregions of South Sardinia have particular features: in Trexenta ladixedda know, small, round and flattened, the medium of Campidano cocorreddu, triangular, flat and smooth; in Marmilla costedda know, a real donut.
The bread party is more elaborate: for loaves, using the flour or meal, are skillfully created in small pieces depicting animals, flowers, fancy shapes. And ‘the case of breads ciuettu (Sinnai Marcalagonis, Selangor) that with these changes is called a singular coccoi. For small weddings coccoi, are enlivened with white pattern with small dots of red saffron; for Christmas bread dough is mixed with sapa black, almond and raisin bread of life to give for de saba, Easter bread gets playful forms and embeds decorated eggs.

The symbolic bread

The shapes of bread awaken archaic customs. The circular shapes, decorating with rims, the reasons anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and phytomorphic born from the hands of women who have always repeated in an unconscious gesture models of primitive peoples, nuragiche, Roman.
But the ritual is fascinating in itself: making bread is the perpetuation of the constant daily grind. The hard work of a people that stands out the roles and responsibilities: provide care that men in farm work, women spend in the production of bread.

The act

The grain itself a demonstration of this work is called in some places or values Laore (work). The bread is also the son: the bread is Pesada (it rears) and blesses, marking it with the cross, before cooking.

Bread Museum:
Housed inside the historic house and Restaurant St. Joseph Convent. On booking tours and tastings of various types of bread.
For more information:
tel. +39 070 503343

Dal blu del mare, i sapori più intensi della cucina sarda

Nei ristoranti della costa è difficile scegliere dal menù, vista l’abbondanza di prelibatezze che vengono usualmente proposte: la burrida (gattucci di mare lasciati macerare in salsa di noci e aceto); gli spaghetti ai ricci o alla bottarga; il musciame (filetto)di tonno; la capunnadda (insalata carlofortina di pane secco, pomodori e tonno), sa fregula con cocciula (una minestra di arselle con una minuscola pasta fatta a mano simile ad un grossolano cus cus).

Si attinge dalla tradizione, sia per proporre i grandi piatti classici di mare che nuove ricette, con prodotti sempre freschi, di stagione e scelti tra le produzioni locali.

La sapiente mano dell’uomo e il clima: ecco la ricetta per produrre grandi vini

Non vi è area in Sardegna dalla quale sia esclusa la viticoltura.

La personalità forte dei vini sardi è legata al clima, alle caratteristiche del suolo e alla cura che l’uomo pone nella selezione dei vitigni, soprattutto quelli locali.

Il Sud Sardegna, soleggiato e accarezzato da costanti brezze marine ha numerose produzioni d’eccellenza tra le quali spiccano eleganti vini doc da dessert (malvasia e girò, moscato e nasco), il bianco autoctono nuragus e i rossi monica e carignano del sulcis.

Praticata in molte zone ancora con mezzi e metodi tradizionali la produzione vinicola ha raggiunto negli ultimi decenni punte di pregevolezza che hanno valso riconoscimenti anche anche in ambito internazionale.

I vini del Sud

Monica: la tesi più avvalorata riconduce l’origine di questo vino all’arrivo intorno al IX secolo dei Monaci Camaldolesi in Sardegna. Dalle coltivazioni di viti intorno ai conventi trarrebbe origine anche il nome. Il Monica di Cagliari, di colore rosso rubino, tenue, tendente all’arancione con l’invecchiamento, di odore intenso, fragrante e floreale, di gusto secco, poco tannico, molto caldo, pieno e morbido e gradazione intorno ai 14.5°. si sposa con cibi secchi, grandi piatti di selvaggina e formaggi piccanti.

Nasco: il suo nome potrebbe derivare dal latino MUSCUS da cui la voce dialettale Nuscu e poi Nascu. Sicuramente i romani con questo nome riferirsi ad un uva del luogo. La sua coltivazione ebbe diffusione in tutto il Campidano. Il disciplinare DOC ha stabilito la modalità di produzione: gradazione alcolica non inferiore ai 14°, invecchiamento di due anni per la produzione normale, almeno di 3 per la superiore. E’ vino secco vellutato, di gran pregio, colore giallo dorato ambrato, profumo delicato con sfumature di fiore di mandorlo e con sapore fino, sottile, caldo con leggero retrogusto di mandorle amare. E’ vino da dessert che si accompagna con dolci di mandorle ma ottimo anche come aperitivo accostato alla bottarga.

Nuragus: è certo che si tratti del vino più antico prodotto nell’isola, introdotto con probabilità dai fondatori fenici della città di Nora da cui il nome stesso del vino. Questa ipotesi è avvalorata oltre che dal nome anche dall’areale di coltivazione, nella pianura retrostante all’approdo. Vino Doc, dal colore paglierino tenue , con riflessi verdolini; ha un profumo delicato e lieve con sentori di fruttato e un sapore asciutto e fresco leggermente acidulo, armonico, gradevole con tenue gradazione alcolica. E’ eccellente vino da pesce , fresco è piacevolissimo aperitivo.

Carignano del Sulcis: di origine incerta (non si è stabilito se sia arrivato con i fenici e i cartaginesi o con gli spagnoli) ha trovato nel Sulcis la sua terra d’elezione. E’ un vino DOC di colore rosso rubino intenso, con odore fragrante, un gusto secco, sapido, giustamente tannico, caldo di medio corpo e con gradazione alcolica minima complessiva di 11.5°. Si sposa ai primi piatti, alle carni grigliate, agli insaccati e ai formaggi maturi.