Unpretensious and solidly seasonal, Sardinian cooking uses only the finest natural ingredients from land and sea, simply prepared, without fuss.

Starting from the most basic foodstuffs, such as bread, a wide assortment of varieties and shapes ineluctably betray their place of origin. Like the pasta types, they all have the same basic ingredients: a "cold" hard-grain flour, rich in bran (over the course of the last decades this has been reintroduced on a vast scale). A selection of soups and broths make use of this bread, even stale.

Fresh pasta acquires a particular flavour when accompanied by tomato sauces, olive oil or cooked with the giblets of small farmyard animals; other pastas are stuffed, with fillings of just-made or recently soured sheep's cheese, occasionally with ricotta.

Among vegetables broad beans and chick-peas are the commonest choices, enriched with flavours and natural aromas like wild fennel, thyme, saffron and field balm.

For seafood dishes fresh fish is used, guaranteeing quality and bringing to the kitchen the best-bred and most authentic aromas.

Among the other possibilities, cooked meat dishes stand out: the traditional boiled sheep/mixed-meat, or alternatively, an exquisitely tender joint of mutton or pork roasted on the spit. The kind wood used to kindle the fire is crucially important for the long "furria-furria" cooking required.

The utmost simplicity is seen in Sardinian sauces, both those of cooked meat and fish. Olive oil predominates, usually very fruity and rather gloopy, which when fried together with garlic and parsley or onions, sometimes even tomatoes (fresh, preserved or sun-dried) complements a dish perfectly.