Sardinia Quotes

“We navigate the produce stands, plucking palms full of cherries from every pile we pass, chewing them and spitting the seeds on the ground. We eat tiny tomatoes with taut skins that snap under gentle pressure, releasing the rabid energy of the Sardinian sun trapped inside. We crack asparagus like twigs and watch the stalks weep chlorophyll tears. We attack anything and everything that grows on trees- oranges, plums, apricots, peaches- leaving pits and peels, seeds and skins in our wake. Downstairs in the seafood section, the heart of the market, the pace quickens. Roberto turns the market into a roving raw seafood bar, passing me pieces of marine life at every stand: brawny, tight-lipped mussels; juicy clams on the half shell with a shocking burst of sweetness; tiny raw shrimp with beads of blue coral clinging to their bodies like gaudy jewelry. We place dominoes of ruby tuna flesh on our tongues like communion wafers, the final act in this sacred procession.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“Eccola dunque col pensiero laggiù.
Le par d’essere ancora fanciulla, arrampicata sul belvedere del prete, in una sera di maggio. Una grande luna di rame sorge dal mare, e tutto il mondo pare d’oro e di perla. La fisarmonica riempie coi suoi gridi lamentosi il cortile illuminato da un fuoco d’alaterni il cui chiarore rossastro fa spiccare sul grigio del muro la figura svelta e bruna del suonatore, i visi violacei delle donne e dei ragazzi che ballano il ballo sardo. Le ombre si muovono fantastiche sull’erba calpestata e sui muri della chiesa; brillano i bottoni d’oro, i galloni argentei dei costumi, i tasti della fisarmonica: il resto si perde nella penombra perlacea della notte lunare. Noemi ricordava di non aver mai preso parte diretta alla festa, mentre le sorelle maggiori ridevano e si divertivano, e Lia accovacciata come una lepre in un angolo erboso del cortile forse fin da quel tempo meditava la fuga.
La festa durava nove giorni di cui gli ultimi tre diventavano un ballo tondo continuo accompagnato da suoni e canti: Noemi stava sempre sul belvedere, tra gli avanzi del banchetto; intorno a lei scintillavano le bottiglie vuote, i piatti rotti, qualche mela d’un verde ghiacciato, un vassoio e un cucchiaino dimenticati; anche le stelle oscillavano sopra il cortile come scosse dal ritmo della danza. No, ella non ballava, non rideva, ma le bastava veder la gente a divertirsi perché sperava di poter anche lei prender parte alla festa della vita.
Ma gli anni eran passati e la festa della vita s’era svolta lontana dal paesetto, e per poterne prender parte sua sorella Lia era fuggita di casa…
Lei, Noemi, era rimasta sul balcone cadente della vecchia dimora come un tempo sul belvedere del prete.”
― Grazia Deledda, Reeds in the Wind

“Load the sailboat with bottles of white wine, olive oil, fishing rods, and yeasty, dark-crusted bread. Work your way carefully out of the narrow channels of the Cabras port on the western shore of Sardinia. Set sail for the open seas.
Navigate carefully around the archipelago of small boats fishing for sea bass, bream, squid. Steer clear of the lines of mussel nets swooping in long black arcs off the coastline. When you spot the crumbling stone tower, turn the boat north and nuzzle it gently into the electric blue-green waters along ancient Tharros. Drop anchor.
Strip down to your bathing suit. Load into the transport boat and head for shore. After a swim, make for the highest point on the peninsula, the one with the view of land and sea and history that will make your knees buckle. Stay focused. You're not here to admire the sun-baked ruins of one of Sardinia's oldest civilizations, a five-thousand-year-old settlement that wears the footprints of its inhabitants- Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans- like the layers of a cake. You're here to pick herbs growing wildly among the ancient tombs and temples, under shards of broken vases once holding humans' earliest attempts at inebriation. Taste this! Like peppermint, but spicy. And this! A version of wild lemon thyme, perfect with seafood. Pluck a handful of finocchio marino,sea fennel, a bright burst of anise with an undertow of salt.
Withfinocchioin fist, reboard the transport vessel and navigate toward the closest buoy. Grab the bright orange plastic, roll it over, and scrape off the thicket of mussels growing beneath. Repeat with the other buoys until you have enough mussels to fill a pot.
In the belly of the boat, bring the dish together: Scrub the mussels. Bring a pot of seawater to a raucous boil and drop in the spaghetti- cento grammi a testa. While the pasta cooks, blanch a few handfuls of the wild fennel to take away some of the sting. Remove the mussels from their shells and combine with sliced garlic, a glass of seawater, and a deluge of peppery local olive oil in a pan. Take the pasta constantly, checking for doneness. (Don't you dare overcook it!) When only the faintest resistance remains in the middle, drain and add to the pan of mussels. Move the pasta fast and frequently with a pair of tongs, emulsifying the water and mussel juice with the oil. Keep stirring and drizzling in oil until a glistening sheen forms on the surface of the pasta. This is called la mantecatura, the key to all great seafood pastas, so take the time to do it right.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“As soon as we take our seats, a sequence of six antipasti materialize from the kitchen and swallow up the entire table: nickels of tender octopus with celery and black olives, a sweet and bitter dance of earth and sea; another plate of polpo, this time tossed with chickpeas and a sharp vinaigrette; a duo of tuna plates- the first seared and chunked and served with tomatoes and raw onion, the second whipped into a light pâté and showered with a flurry of bottarga that serves as a force multiplier for the tuna below; and finally, a plate of large sea snails, simply boiled and served with small forks for excavating the salty-sweet knuckle of meat inside.
As is so often the case in Italy, we are full by the end of the opening salvo, but the night is still young, and the owner, who stops by frequently to fill my wineglass as well as his own, has a savage, unpredictable look in his eyes. Next comes the primo, a gorgeous mountain of spaghetti tossed with an ocean floor's worth of clams, the whole mixture shiny and golden from an indecent amount of olive oil used to mount the pasta at the last moment- the fat acting as a binding agent between the clams and the noodles, a glistening bridge from earth to sea. "These are real clams, expensive clams," the owner tells me, plucking one from the plate and holding it up to the light, "not those cheap, flavorless clams most restaurants use for pasta alle vongole."
Just as I'm ready to wave the white napkin of surrender- stained, like my pants, a dozen shades of fat and sea- a thick cylinder of tuna loin arrives, charred black on the outside, cool and magenta through the center. "We caught this ourselves today," he whispers in my ear over the noise of the dining room, as if it were a secret to keep between the two of us. How can I refuse?”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“The soul of Sardinia lies in the hills of the interior and the villages peppered among them. There, in areas such as Nuoro and Ozieri, women bake bread by the flame of the communal oven, winemakers produce their potions from small caches of grapes adapted to the stubborn soil and acrid climate, and shepherds lead their flocks through the peaks and valleys in search of the fickle flora that fuels Sardinia's extraordinary cheese culture. There are more sheep than humans roaming this island- and sheep can't graze on sand.
On the table, the food stands out as something only loosely connected to the cuisine of Italy's mainland. Here, every piece of the broader puzzle has its own identity: pane carasau, the island's main staple, eats more like a cracker than a loaf of bread, built to last for shepherds who spent weeks away from home. Cheese means sheep's milk manipulated in a hundred different ways, from the salt-and-spice punch of Fiore Sardo to the infamous maggot-infested casu marzu. Fish and seafood may be abundant, but they take a backseat to four-legged animals: sheep, lamb, and suckling pig. Historically, pasta came after bread in the island's hierarchy of carbs, often made by the poorest from the dregs of the wheat harvest, but you'll still find hundreds of shapes and sizes unfamiliar to a mainland Italian. All of it washed down with wine made from grapes that most people have never heard of- Cannonau, Vermentino, Torbato- that have little market beyond the island.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“Biddanoa cumenzàt cun d’unu suspiru. Fut su suspiru de chini, apustis de nd’èssi calau ’e su trenu in punta ’e mesudì, ndi bessìat de su fossu accantu fut sa stazioni e dda bìat di attesu, sa bidda, in artu in d’unu monti, e bìat s’arziàda mala chi fut abettendiddu po ci arribai.
Is domus, bias de cussa distànzia, parìant allìgras, iscaringiàdas a arrìri, cun cuddu biancu a ingìriu de gennas e ventanas che una miràda beffiana ghettàda a is chi fùanta sudendu in s’ùrtimu trettu ’e s’arziadróxu chi acabàda in Cuccuru ’e Callia.”
― Benvenuto Lobina, Po cantu Biddanoa

“Load the sailboat with bottles of white wine, olive oil, fishing rods, and yeasty, dark-crusted bread. Work your way carefully out of the narrow channels of the Cabras port on the western shore of Sardinia. Set sail for the open seas.
Navigate carefully around the archipelago of small boats fishing for sea bass, bream, squid. Steer clear of the lines of mussel nets swooping in long black arcs off the coastline. When you spot the crumbling stone tower, turn the boat north and nuzzle it gently into the electric blue-green waters along ancient Tharros. Drop anchor.
Strip down to your bathing suit. Load into the transport boat and head for shore. After a swim, make for the highest point on the peninsula, the one with the view of land and sea and history that will make your knees buckle. Stay focused. You're not here to admire the sun-baked ruins of one of Sardinia's oldest civilizations, a five-thousand-year-old settlement that wears the footprints of its inhabitants- Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans- like the layers of a cake. You're here to pick herbs growing wildly among the ancient tombs and temples, under shards of broken vases once holding humans' earliest attempts at inebriation. Taste this! Like peppermint, but spicy. And this! A version of wild lemon thyme, perfect with seafood. Pluck a handful of finocchio marino,sea fennel, a bright burst of anise with an undertow of salt.
With finocchio in fist, reboard the transport vessel and navigate toward the closest buoy. Grab the bright orange plastic, roll it over, and scrape off the thicket of mussels growing beneath. Repeat with the other buoys until you have enough mussels to fill a pot.
In the belly of the boat, bring the dish together: Scrub the mussels. Bring a pot of seawater to a raucous boil and drop in the spaghetti- cento grammi a testa. While the pasta cooks, blanch a few handfuls of the wild fennel to take away some of the sting. Remove the mussels from their shells and combine with sliced garlic, a glass of seawater, and a deluge of peppery local olive oil in a pan. Take the pasta constantly, checking for doneness. (Don't you dare overcook it!) When only the faintest resistance remains in the middle, drain and add to the pan of mussels. Move the pasta fast and frequently with a pair of tongs, emulsifying the water and mussel juice with the oil. Keep stirring and drizzling in oil until a glistening sheen forms on the surface of the pasta. This is called la mantecatura, the key to all great seafood pastas, so take the time to do it right.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“Despite the challenges, S'Apposentu slowly bloomed into one of Cagliari's most important restaurants. Roberto brought with him the hundreds of little lessons he had learned on the road and transposed them onto Sardinian tradition and terreno. He turned roasted onions into ice cream and peppered it with wild flowers and herbs. He reimagined porceddu, Sardinia's heroic roast pig, as a dense terrine punctuated with local fruits. He made himself into a master: of bread baking, cheese making, meat curing. In 2006, Michelin rewarded him with a star, one of the first ever awarded in Sardinia.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“Gian Pero Frau, one of the most important characters in the supporting cast surrounding S'Apposentu, runs an experimental farm down the road from the restaurant. His vegetable garden looks like nature's version of a teenager's bedroom, a rebellious mess of branches and leaves and twisted barnyard wire. A low, droning buzz fills the air. "Sorry about the bugs," he says, a cartoonish cloud orbiting his head.
But beneath the chaos a bloom of biodynamic order sprouts from the earth. He uses nothing but dirt and water and careful observation to sustain life here. Every leaf and branch has its place in this garden; nothing is random. Pockets of lettuce, cabbage, fennel, and flowers grow in dense clusters together; on the other end, summer squash, carrots, and eggplant do their leafy dance. "This garden is built on synergy. You plant four or five plants in a close space, and they support each other. It might take thirty or forty days instead of twenty to get it right, but the flavor is deeper." (There's a metaphor in here somewhere, about his new life Roberto is forging in the Sardinian countryside.)
"He's my hero," says Roberto about Gian Piero. "He listens, quietly processes what I'm asking for, then brings it to life. Which doesn't happen in places like Siddi." Together, they're creating a new expression of Sardinian terreno, crossing genetic material, drying vegetables and legumes under a variety of conditions, and experimenting with harvesting times that give Roberto a whole new tool kit back in the kitchen.
We stand in the center of the garden, crunching on celery and lettuce leaves, biting into zucchini and popping peas from their shells- an improvised salad, a biodynamic breakfast that tastes of some future slowly forming in the tangle of roots and leaves around us.”
― Matt Goulding, Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture

“I am the trees and the flowers you step on. Iam the earth you walk on, the water you drink, the animals you kill. I am the mountains and the never-ending sea. I am here and everywhere else, now and forever. I am Everything.”
― Dr. Watson, When the Spring Comes

“Si vede che il Creatore quando ha fatto il mondo avrà chiesto aiuto al Diavolo e gli avrà detto di fare la Sardegna.”
― Gavino Ledda

“His mind wanders to faraway lands, to the glimmering sea under the midday sun, to the cultivated vineyards ready for harvest, to lush forest covering the hills of his home. He sees the past, with his ancestors living this same life, sleeping under the same tree, running behind their own sweethearts, just like he does. He sees the future, the many sunsets to come, the olives he will eat and the wine he will drink, and Rosalia is always there, beside him, smiling to him, in his future.”
― Dr. Watson, Song Among the Ruins

“An Italian romance may begin in a gondola amid the marvel of Venice, but a traveler looking for the great stories of Italy will board a sailboat amid the gale force of mistral winds, confront the rough
seas and warnings of “the insane mountains” that have addled visitors for thousands of years, and then traverse the Strait of Bonifacio in search of Sardinia.”
― Jeff Biggers, In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy

“In fact, it might be more accurate to speak of “le Sardegne,” as in plural, instead of “la Sardegna,” a singular entity, with a singu- lar culture or set of ways. The “fundamental misunderstanding” in the Mediterranean, as historian Abulafia wrote in The Great Sea, was the illusive search for some sense of unity and clarity in such a place. Instead, he suggested, “we should note diversity,” among the shores in a “constant state of flux.”
― Jeff Biggers, In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy

“One map, titled “Mediterranean without Borders,” by French cartographer Sabine Réthoré, turns our view ninety degrees to the right, the “west” facing up—imagine North Africa to the left and Europe into Turkey to the right with equal stature, the Levant stretching to Egypt at the bottom, and the Rock of Gibraltar at top. Our perspective shifts, the Mediterranean Sea unfolding almost like a lake, the shores mirroring each other along these ancient corridors dotted by islands and waterways. It’s a busy thoroughfare. The Mediterranean is “probably the most vigorous place of interaction,” as eminent historian David Abulafia observed, “between different societies on the face of this planet.”

There in the upper reaches, the island of Sardinia sits in the middle, a focal point of entry and inspection. Instead of being on the periphery of empires or a nebulous island west of the Italian mainland, Sardinia is central to the Mediterranean story and a nexus for navigators heading in any direction. The idea of isolation, as one medieval historian would note, no longer appears “tenable.”
― Jeff Biggers, In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy

“The second map is of Sardinia itself: the main island with its many islets. It is not a floating green mountain with a defining valley that splices along the south by southwest, as a topographical map would show. Instead, this map is as colorful as a neon strip of nightlife you might download on a cell phone for the latest cultural events. In fact, devised as a geoportal and online app by a volunteer organization called Nurnet in 2013, the map pinpoints the thousands of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments across the islands with the fanfare of an open museum.

As part of Nurnet’s mission to “promote a different image of Sardinia in the world,” the map is nothing less than astounding. If you actually illuminated all of these ancient monuments, from the Neolithic array of Stonehenge-like dolmens and menhir stone formations to the thousands of burial tombs, Bronze Age towers and complexes called nuraghes or nuraghi, the entire island would light up like a prehistoric hotspot. The vastness of the uninterrupted cycles of civilizations and their architectural marvels still standing today would be incomparable with any place in Europe on that first Mediterranean map.

The Sardinians call it the “endless museum.”
― Jeff Biggers, In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy

“While Sardinian authors, like Giuseppe Cossu in 1799, had been lamenting the oversight of the island’s history and “unfaithful geo- graphic maps” for centuries, there still seemed to be a lingering nar- rative of historical ambivalence, as if the island had been an empty stage until the arrival of Phoenicians and Romans; as if Sardinians had no ancient civilization or role in their own destiny—or, more importantly, as if they had no role in shaping Italy and the worlds be- yond their island. I couldn’t help but wonder if we were missing the most vital parts of the island and its history; that perhaps we needed to understand Sardinia if we were to truly understand the rest of Italy.”
― Jeff Biggers, In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy