Italian

These are an excellent choice for late summer when fresh tomatoes are at their besto.

Every province on the island claims its own version of this ethereal sweet to be the one-and-only true sospirus. The Olienese hand seems the most gentle with them, though. The very old woman from whom I learned to make them shook her small, kerchiefed head throughout the ceremony, moaning, keening, really, that the confections could only be made from the eggs of Sardinian chickens. Her theory, perhaps valid, was that Sard hens feed on myrtle berries and whey from cheesemaking and that these nourishments render the substance of their eggs less viscous and thus better suited to the construction of delicate pastries. All I know for certain is that I can bake gorgeous sospirus with the eggs of Tuscan hens who eat worms and bugs and corn.

Sculpted into the shanks of the Sopramonte in the barbagia is Oliena. And drifting toward it from the Nuorese road at sunset, the golden lamplight of the village bedazzles the mountain, splendoring its old, cold grayness as would the gleams of ten thousand torches. Later, inside the village as we sat with our aperitivi, we told a local man how the approach had pleased us. He said that it was ritual for the Olienesi to walk down from the village at crepuscolo (twilight) turning back to face the mountain as the sun softened, sobered down to sleep, before they strolled back up the hill to suppers. And it is from these romantic Olienesi that was begun the tradition of two celebrated Sard dolci—sebadas and sospirus. Sebadas are typically made with a fresh ewe’s milk cheese cushioned inside leaves of pastry, tumbled into bubbling oil, then given a dose of bitter honey. This version asks for ricotta and mascarpone-plumped pastries to be baked, then given a wisp of a honeyed sheen. Present them after some simple supper, such as mazzamurru (page 233), with a tiny glass of icy Malvasia di Cagliari.

In the south near Cagliari, in the town of Sant’ Elena, is staged a September festival—a tribute to their patroness and a celebration of the vendemmia—the harvesting of the grapes. There are four ascendancies in the week’s pageantry. The ancestral dress of the townsfolk, the great, pendulous, ambered muscat grapes, called zibibbo, with which the whole, humble precinct is festooned, the wine pressed from their honeyed juices, and, finally, the luscious breads baked from zibibbi left to dry and crinkle in the sun. Though the bread is sweetened and ornamented with raisins, it is most compatible with game dishes such as fagiano arrosto alla Saverio di Nulvi, (page 240) or braises such as the cosciotto di maiale al coccio del pastore Sassarese (page 237). We ate pane di zibibbo in Sant’ Elena with the sweet, white flesh of a myrtle-roasted pig. The bread, still warm from the oven, or roasted over a wood fire, makes for a gorgeous fine pasto with a piece of young pecorino and a glass of moscato. I reserve the bread’s golden-crisped fringes for the baker.

Deep in the interior of the island on the fringes of the barbagia is Nuoro. It seemed a cultural suicide, wielded by unsentimental politicos over this past half century, that smote Nuoro’s picturesque and pastoral life. This, the place on Sardegna where Stone Age man first set his fires, the place least contaminated by the passing of the millennia, was swiftly, gracelessly swept away by those compelled to gentrify her. Little has changed about the Nuoresi themselves, though. As best they can midst their fresh new proscenium of concrete, they still dance their simple rhythms, honor legacy and heritage with their reserved sort of gaiety. A sweet—once made only by the Nuorese massaie, farmwives—is now fabricated in crisp, shiny laboratories and sent then, in its handsome trappings and tassels, to elegant shops on the Continent. Still, the women cook their ancestral aranciata at home for feast days, sometimes tucking it into bits of lace, placing little pouches of it at everyone’s place at table, then hiding an old silvered tin of it in the back seat of a new friend’s automobile.

The game birds called grive that are the Sards’ quarry in the macchia are too small to cook over the open fire, hence they are often poached in white wine, then laid to cool on a palette of myrtle leaves and twigs, with a coverlet of yet more of the leaves, all of them scenting the flesh with soft perfumes, a reprise of the machinations of the old bracconiere (page 226). Yet another cunning Sard prescription is to tuck the birds inside a paper or cloth sack fitted with the herbs. By fastening the sack securely, one creates a vaporous chamber in which they rest and cool, breathing in the sweet steam. Lacking myrtle bushes, use whole branches of rosemary and thyme, fat leaves of sage, and the fronds of wild or cultivated fennel as lush surrogate bedding for the little birds. A few cloves of barely crushed garlic seem to invigorate the herbs. Luscious to carry on a picnic, one might prepare the quail—or game hens, a chicken, or a fat capon, adjusting the poaching times accordingly—the evening before, and next day carry along the sack of birds readied for lunch.

The swineherd, like the shepherd, conducts his life significantly all’ aria aperta—out-of-doors. It is there that he naps and forages, tends to his fires, capriciously bathing himself and one part or another of his clothing in an often swift and single maneuver. He might also cook up some wonderfully scented stew of wild mushrooms or one of dried beans and just-gathered grasses and herbs, as supplement to his staples of cheese, honey, bread, and wine. More than once, though, we took note of purposeful midday couriers visiting a swineherd in the pasture, carrying a basket full of components for him to cook a fine feast of a lunch midst his charges and under the sun. We learned, too, that, once in a while, the swineherd cooks for his family, his friends. Here follows a version of a dish as it is prepared by a young Sard herdsman when he slaughters a pig for market. Staging a torchlit supper in his meadow, he braises a haunch of the animal for his neighbors. Its formula was told to us by his wife, she having cooked it for us on the farm where we stayed near Sassari.

A tiny place where once lived the paladins of Sardegna is Orgosolo. Only a decade or so ago did they think it prudent, finally, to wander about the steep, tortured alleyways of their mountain village unadorned with a rifle. Orgosolo is the historic lair of Sard banditismo—banditry. Perhaps the businesses of thieving and buccaneering seem more gainful in Calabria, for now, the only rapscallions left in Orgosolo are the political artists whose bullying, bitter-sermoned murals irritate walls, housefronts, mountain faces. Too, icons are chafed, gastronomically, in Orgosolo, as they are here in this dish, which asks for bottarga as well as pecorino, upsetting the proscription, for a moment, against the mingling of fish and cheese.