Second courses

One of the main forms of Sardinian cooking is roasting. Roasting is a ritual that is almost exclusively reserved to men and on special occasions it is an honour left to the most experienced among the men.

The best known roast is sucking pig which is roasted on a hand crafted spit made of arbutus wood. While the sucking pig is roasting, lard and aromatic grasses such as myrtle, rosemary, laurel and sage are added which flavours the sucking pig.

It is worthwhile mentioning also an other two ways of roasting. The first, which is called mallori de su sabatteri in the language of Nuoro, consists in putting the animals one inside the other in the following way: inside a calf put a goat which in turn contains a sucking pig and keep on inserting an animal into another like a Chinese box. 

The second way of roasting consists of putting a sucking pig or a wild boar into a hole dug in the ground where sweet-scented woods and myrtle leaves are burning. Cover with myrtle branches. Place hot embers on branches. These embers slow roast the meat which is very sweet-scented. 
This way of roasting is called carraxiu in the Sardinian language. Among the various game dishes is Is pillonis de t'accula which is a delicious dish of thrushes and blackbirds. The birds are boiled in salted water and wrapped in myrtle leaves to season. Before talking about fish courses we must say that Sardinia, despite its abundant fish and sea food, does not have many original recipes because Sardinian people have never been sailors. 

For this reason the seafood specialities are influenced by other populations who arrived in Sardinia. Let us mention burrida, a dish from Genova but transformed by Sardinian cuisine. 
This dish consists of lesser spotted dogfish covered with an oil, vinegar and triturated walnut sauce. There is also cassola, a soup made of various fish; the delicious roast mullet and scabecciu, which is mullet marinade in vinegar; lobster with vernaccia which is a dish consisting of lobster seasoned with cloves and white wine.