Sardinia wine and cheese - tips on living a long life
People are obsessed with getting various limitations to their diet. It isn’t actually always a stupid thing to do - some nutrition systems have proved to provide health benefits. A mediterranean diet for example. But isn’t it too boring to follow it staying at home somewhere far from the sea, cheese and seafood?
To find out what mediterranean diet really looks like it would be best to go to somewhere it is practised naturally, like Sardinia.
It’s all about cheese
And meat. The island has been populated before the Etruscans lived on the peninsula. Most of the population were shepherds, so they needed a lot of snacks with a long shelf life. This is the main reason for the cheese and cured meat varieties here on the island. Every household had its own secret recipe, and each generation added its own details to refine the result.
You probably have heard of the legendary sardinian rotten cheese - casu marzu. They basically take the pecorino cheese and infest it with the certain fly larvae. It is eaten while the larvae are still alive, otherwise it could mean the cheese is poisonous. By the way, the larvae can jump when disturbed, so you’d better wear goggles when eating this. The cheese had been prohibited by 2010, but is legally available now again. We are probably not brave enough, but we wouldn’t want to taste it, the pecorino it came from is great enough without any additional flies.
But even if you are not ready to eat live insects, there are still many cheese varieties to taste. Just to name some - creamy provoletta affumicata, sweet dolce sardo, flavourful pecorino and parmiggiano.
What are the “specialite de la maison”?
After you’ve tried all the cheese, try zuppa gallurese. This is basically the baked soup made of layers of stale bread, soaked in the broth. The peculiarity of this dish is the broth itself and the filling that is placed between the bread layers. Curiously shaped pasta named fregola is also worth your attention. It is served with the tomato and sausage sauce.
What else can be done here?
You’re in Italy, where the concentration of attractions per square mile is one of the highest.
Visit the ancient Roman harbor Olbia, that is located here. There are monasteries and museums, there are facilities for the activities like diving and surfing. So you won’t just eat, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to burn these calories.
Living a Mediterranean lifestyle
Some scientists say, that the success of mediterranean diet is not in what they eat, but in what they don’t eat. Well, having this assortment of cheese and meat I don’t see someone craving a burger or a doughnut. And did you know, you can include a glass of red wine daily when following a mediterranean diet? Isn’t it the loveliest diet on the planet? Right? Sardinia is the region where the life there must be a key to longevity.
