Typical Products

Without any doubt, Bread is definitely one speciality of the island.  The most famous is “pane carasau” or music paper bread made from thin, circular, toasted sheets which last a long time and hence were used by the shepherds who spent long days in the sheep pens far from their town.

Amongst the meats “porceddu”, or pork on the spit, flavoured with myrtle leaves is definitely the Product which characterizes Sardinian cooking.  Other typical shepherds’ dishes are lamb and kid which are either grilled or stewed with wild fennel.  As well as being made from pork, sausages are also made from wild boar.

Sheeps cheese, goats cheese and cows cheeses are produced in Sardinia.  The most notable amongst the sheeps cheese is the hard Cheese (pecorino romano), semi-hard cheese (pecorino Sardo) and soft fresh cheeses (fiore sardo, bonassai and dolce sardo). The goats cheeses are soft but with a strong flavour (Biancospino).

Of the cows cheeses, “peretta”, a soft stringy cheese, is worth mentioning (provola, in the shape of a pear, with a little ball shape on top to tie it and hang it up).  A really creamy ricotta made from sheep or goat whey is eaten fresh.  If it is salty and smoked it is called ricotta mustia.

A huge variety of sweets are produced on the island; amongst the most common almost everywhere are bianchini, amaretti, tiricche, papassini, formaggelle, sospiri, torrone, seadas, mustaccioli, gattò, pardulas, ciambelle and miele (honey) which can be made from arbutus, thistle, chestnuts, eucalyptus and asphodel.

Every region in Sardinia has its own characteristic dishes, like snails, broad beans, lamb intestines with peas, lambs’ feet, roast squid, doormice, grilled donkey and horse steaks and Sassarese chick pea bread.

In Alghero the typical dishes are justifiably connected to the sea, like aragosta (lobster) alla Catalana, seafood risotto, spaghetti with sea urchins, stuffed squid, fish in garlic sauce and crayfish soup.

In Gallura you can taste traditional agropastoral dishes like zuppa-cuata and dishes linked to the sea like zuppe du cozze e arselle di Olbia (Olbian mussel and clam soup) and Maddalena soup.

In the Nuoro area you can taste excellent first courses like pane frattau, ravioli, culurgiones (pototo pasta) filled with cheese, potatoes with garlic and mint and maccarrones de busa.  As well as piglet, lamb and kid on the spit other typical dishes are stewed sheep and roasted animal intestines (trattaliu).

Oristano and the surrounding area offer a gastronomy more tied to the sea or small ponds.  Dried mullet eggs (bottarga) are eaten in slices as an hors d’oevre or grated to flavour spaghetti.  Other typical first courses are ravioli filled with fish and seafood risotto.  Roast or boiled mullet and eel are specialities of the local cooking, as are clams.

In the region of Cagliari fish dishes are the most common, with dishes based on tuna, spaghetti all’aragosta (spaghetti with lobster), la cassola (fish soup), la burrida, le polpette di pesce (fish balls) le attinie (orziadas) which are breadcrumbed and fried, crabs, bocconi and sea urchins.

The first courses which really must be mentioned are malloreddus campidanesi (hand made semolina gnocchetti (pasta) with a hint of saffron), fregola (a type of couscous made by roasting the semolina grains with water, egg yolk and saffron) and the traditional dishes, sas panadas (a salted pie stuffed with meat or eel).