Traditional Sardinian cuisine evolved from the island’s mountainous terrain and its pastoral and hunting traditions, using the food available in the interior:  wild herbs, lamb, wild boar, honey, myrtle, olives.  Pork, suckling pig, lamb, kid are specialities, and wild boar particularly during the November-January hunting season, all seasoned with wild rosemary and other mountain herbs.  A traditional first course is Zuppa Gallurese, not really a soup but layers of bread and cheese moistened with meat stock and baked in the oven till a golden crust forms on top – a dish for hearty peasant appetites...

Other typical Sardinian dishes include Gnocchetti Sardi, Porcetto al mirto (pork with Mirto), Capretto con patate (kid with potatoes), Pesce alla Crosta di Sale (fish in salt) and Seadas (deep fried honey pastries).    

(Restaurants such as Angelo & Arcangela at Monte Pinu 0789 43911 or La Pitraia in Sant'Antonio di Gallura 079 669381 are both in the mountains above Olbia and specialise in this cuisine.)

On or near the coast local fish, lobsters and shellfish appear on most menus, caught out of ports such as Palau or Olbia.  The Mediterranean has been heavily fished for many years, so fish aren’t plentiful meaning fresh local fish is not cheap.

 

Sardinian products

The quality and authenticity of many traditional Sardinian food products are protected by strict regulation of their ingredients and labelling, to maintain the island's culinary heritage and reputation.

Cheese  The island produces some superb cheeses from cow, goat and sheep milk.  Best known are the various pecorinos from sheep milk;  dolce mild, stagionato much more mature.  Fiore Sardo uses uncooked milk, while pecorino romano is cooked.  Dolce Sardo is a milder cheese, made using cow’s milk.  Those labelled Latte di Capra are from goats milk, often semi stagionato or stagionato.  Local ricotta is also well worth seeking out.

Sweets  Dolci sardi, small sweet biscuits and pastries, are found in bakeries everywhere;  many use the local honey and nuts in their recipes.  Formagelle are slightly larger, sweet cheese and sultana tarts;  the softer ones are made with local ricotta.  Note for vegetarians, some pastries contain strutto, an animal fat used in many dishes as shortening.  Seadas, deep-fried cheese pastries served with a warm honey sauce as dessert, can also contain strutto.

Torrone is a local nougat-like sweet made with honey, almonds and sometimes additional nuts or flavourings, on sale in shops and markets during the summer and also at Christmas.

Honey comes in a huge variety of flavours, dependent on the apiary's local environment, with various herb and flower types.  Miele amaro is bitter honey, with an unusual and very bitter aftertaste, made by bees which feed on the arbutus/"strawberry tree" berries - it's supposed to be good for the throat.

Saffron, zafferano, is grown on the island and used in traditional dishes, often savoury, such as malloreddus pasta.

Bread  The thin circular disks of Pane Carasau, baked once then split and rebaked, keep well - the kind of food shepherds and others labouring far from home needed to survive.  It’s on sale in every supermarket and bakery and appears on the table in many restaurants, sometimes warm sprinkled with fragrant rosemary, salt and olive oil, sometimes in a more elaborate version baked with cheese and tomato or meat stock.  Other traditional breads include spianata, a round, flat, pitta-like bread which has slightly different characteristics dependent on the area.  Vegetarians - some of the flat breads from supermarkets contain strutto…