Sardinia cooking offers a wide variety of food products. A selected number of restaurants and “agriturismo” (guest house in the countryside) offer typical menus.
Sardinia cooking offers a wide variety of food products. Most of them have been passed on by the agropastoral traditions. Some dishes are still prepared because of the devotion to local cultures or by the different cooking traditions of the many peoples who have lived on the island. In Sardinia people continue to cook some specialities to celebrate important days along the year: breads and cakes baked on All Soul’s Day, S. Antonio, and Easter day.
During Winter and Spring time special dishes are prepared in accordance with the pig’s and sheep’s reproductive cycle. In the area of Sassari dishes are related with countryside traditions while Castelsardo and Alghero offer sea food products such as the famous lobster; tuna fish from Carloforte is also very much appreciated.
What up to a few years ago was only produced for family use, nowadays can be also bought in small laboratories that work according to tradition. The most typical products are “carasau” bread used by shepherds during their transhumance, the excellent cheeses different for maturing and quality, the delicious bottarga (“bottargo” or dry mullet’s eggs), the olive oil and last but not least the nougat. A selected number of restaurants and “agriturismo” (guest house in the countryside) offer typical menus, but there are also open air restaurants in Gallura region (they prepare the famous “Suppa cuata”) and open air lunches organized by fishermen in Sinis area.
In Sardinia wine is probably being produced for a long time. In a nuragic village near Dorgali, archaeologists found some seeds that attest that Sardinian people used to drink “cannonau” wine at least 1000 years BC. Sardinia wines are becoming popular and appreciated by connoisseurs. In some areas we have the ideal conditions to produce full-bodied red wines such as Cannonau and Carignano and some excellent sweet wines for dessert like Nasco, Malvasia di Bosa and Vernaccia di Oristano. We also produce very good quality white wines.
Vermentino di Gallura D.O.C.G deserves to be mentioned. It is produced with Vermentino, an old vine brought to Sardinia from Corsica that found ideal conditions to create a wonderful dry and scented product.
La “Strada del vermentino” (Vermentino trail), with a stop at the wine museum in Berchidda is for sure one of the most interesting itineraries for food and wine.