As I wrote in my previous post on our trip to Sardinia we stayed in a vacation area but a very non-touristy vacation area. There were very few restaurants, no snack places on the beach, and there isn’t even a grocery store close by. The closest grocery store of any size is a 20 min drive while there are a couple of smaller stores a 10-15 min drive.

I sort of knew this before we left and was a bit worried. As a “maman” I like have a break from cooking and cleaning on vacation and that means at least some time going out to restaurants.

However, having to cook every night turned out great. I really got into cooking pastas and we also experienced some local food that we night not have going to a restaurant.

Our first discovery was pane carasau, a traditional flatbread from Sardinia. It is SUPER thin. You almost wonder why you are eating it. It is like dry paper… but actually it is quite tasty and I got addicted to it. It was originally a bread made for shepherds and can last up to a year. I got a kick from thinking I was eating the same bread that shepherds ate thousands of years ago! You can perhaps see from the first photo how thin it is.

There is another version, slightly different that is pane guittiau. It is a flavored version. In this case, the flavor is onion!

Another interesting bread we encountered was Frise Giganti. From this they make a dish called friselle which has a mixture of tomatoes, mozarella, basil and balsamic vinegar on the frise. On the left is my attempt at making it. This also is a dried bread and also looks like it could last a year! It is quite thick and has a hole in the middle – kind of like a huge dried bagel.

We also tried the local cookies available in the grocery store, a sugar cookie with an apricot jam filling and a walnut cookie that resemble a sweet scone. The walnut cookie is called a papassino and is a traditional sardinian cookie. The ones we had were addictive with a slight lemon tang to them. I’m going to try recreating them. We tried a couple of different versions of the apricot cookie, a Canestrini all albicocca or Ciambelline albicocca. One had a bit of cinnamon in the sugar cookie and the other did not.

We did get some prepared food from a cute little shop in Chia – a more touristy town. The shop had prepared foods as well as high end groceries. It wasn’t a grocery store, more like a delicatessen wine shop offering all sorts of delicacies. We got an amazing focaccia there for lunch one day. And at a different market in Chia, more down to earth at the crossroads of SS195, we got an amazing stuffed focacia. Both were delicious.

Finally, I do have to mention the produce and wine we bought at the grocery store. The tomatoes and grapes were excellent (as was the wine!).

All in all, though we only went out to eat at a restaurant once on our trip (more on that later) the food in Sardinia was AMAZING!