Look at this fish. Food on the island of Sardinia is unlike anywhere else on. Earth Check out the size of this loaf of bread. With just 24 hours on the second biggest island in the Mediterranean Sea I wanted to find out what exactly is Sardinian food and what makes it so special? To find out we'll have a seafood lunch on a rustic fishing boat.

Oh man, the entire sea is in my mouth right now. Experience an endangered Sardinian cooking tradition. The challenge of doing suckling pig is that you never know how the pig is going to actually come out and taste an illegal Shepherd's cheese that even I'm nervous to try. Wow literally just goes into your brain.

It's going to be wild. Let's go eat! Sardinia Hey everyone good morning! Hope you're having an amazing day! It's Mark We and welcome to the gorgeous island of Sardinia in Italy In the Mediterranean we are about to meet up with some local fishermen who are going to take us on a fishing trip. Hopefully we'll catch some fish and some seafood and then they're going to cook. We're going to eat on the boat.

hi hello and here's our boat. this is Real Deal proper fishing boat. Hi Here we go onto the boat. okay John What's the what's the plan? Where are we at? Uh, so we're in K Okay, the capital of Sardinia and we're in the Gulf of the C with some of the most important local fishermen who go out every day and and catch uh, the local catch basically and we're going to have a meal on board and we're going to go on the go of the Kad Kad has a a beach which goes 7 kilomet all the way down and it's calledo the 100,000 people Beach who Seafood Oh lines or what are those called? Scampy? Scumpy? Okay scumpy? yeah that's much better.

Nice. So we are going to go fishing, but we do have a little backup Seafood just in case some scumpy some Camari oh some bread, some pasta. uh I mean you never know. You never know what you're going to get on a fishing trip.

This is cooked already. this is ready to consume before we set out. Well no not yet. This is the base for oh okay okay so we still need to make that into so in Kaj they say frula.

In the towns small towns in the S it's called fra ah and those are like little ball pastas. this is uh, semolina and water. Oh okay. oh and there's more lobers.

amazing bright orange lobsters. Oh our fishing has been successful. We have succeeded. Seafood Before we head out, we don't need to go fishing now.

so like so like in Maria Okay the way we make a a fish soup like a bullia base. our version: Las Sakaa is the local fish. Okay so you almost always going to have this in your fish soup. Okay and then this is lion fish Lion fish.

or is it a rock fish? or yeah, it's a rock fish a rock fish. Okay, yeah and then you have a mullet. Nice. Okay okay and this is a little San Petro of St Peter Oh that's a beautiful look at this fish.

San Petro Fish this is going to go into our Seafood fisherman Style Seafood stew. uh Sardinia Style and man we have so much. Seafood I mean we almost don't need to go fishing. we're moving, we're on the way.

Oh more. Seafood Oh nice. Looks like some uh more calamari small fish. Oh this fish will be fried.

yeah I've never met a fried fish I didn't love you. Go fishing and you get so much. Okay Go! This is the cozy kitchen back here so Chef is getting started. the lobsters, the scampy going to make the pasta as well and all the fish fried fish.

What a kitchen. my W oh wow oh the aroma Chef is preparing the the Seafood Steak so you boiled up that that fresh seafood, the scampy, the shrimp, the calamari boiled it with tomato sauce. um and now he's adding in some of the fish. Some of the rock fish go in fin.

whoa Oh it's like a pillow sized bread. Check out the size of this loaf of red. Oh it's the size of my head. It can hide Mr Tter it's that big.

it's like a pillow. Literally is a pillow sized bread. Catalana. Okay so Catalan Aragosta Typical dish from Barcelona Onion, tomato, aragosta and olive oil with the lobsters.

Yes, 400 years? Yes Wow! The fresh squeezed olive oil. Organic olive oil. Those organic too. Oh so the lobsters, tomatoes, onions, fresh olive oil.

The fresh squeeze. you can see how vibrant and green it is. So I dare you in Sardinia to find a dish with more than four ingredients? Yeah yes, four ingredients. more than we usually have.

A piece of garlic, some olive oil, a protein, and maybe a vegetable? That's it. That's it. sard find more than ingredients. This is the artichoke that's been marinating in lime juice.

Oh that's amazing. Slightly bitter, really crispy. Oh, the flavor keeps on coming. So Mark in Sardinia we have a special type of artichoke.

It's called Copo spinoso. It's very rich in iron and uh, we do many things with artichoke with aroke. So Arch and fish eggs. and that's the the fish eggs preserved salted votara.

and Kopi how many ingredients are in there? Four Yes. finish with olive oil. Answer: huh and over on this side of the kitchen he's putting semolina onto the seafood. That's how they they fry Seafood in Sardinia style he's sorting the fish Eduardo Nice move.

Oh that broth is incredible with the Tomato Can I have it? Oh man, it's good. Can I have one more Yes, the crunch of that AR choke and the olive oil. the saltiness of the Baga that's amazing as John was mentioning Sardinian Food is super simple, maximum four ingredients and that's like proven right there. focusing on freshness, quality and like not complexity but I mean when your ingredients are this fresh, that's what you need.

Aroke B Olive oil. That's it. Boom! this is incredible that is so good. Yes, look at us okay and couldn't be in a more beautiful place.

Here it is the Ca that's the famous CA from Calary. Oh oh man. Eduardo Thank you! Oh wow the muscularity. It's so so muscular, so sweet.

I do want to chase with some of those onions though. Those onions are just so good. Yeah, unbelievable. The best.

The onions are incredible. Never had that crispy and sweet onion. Oh man. the lobster is amazing.

So perfectly cooked, muscular, so sweet. Oh who were you filming? It's the first time I've ever been hit in the head with bread going in for some of that fish and then then that sauce on the bottom there. Okay fish sauce all together Mhm. the fishes fish is translucent.

the fish is incredible. melt in your mouth. We got tomato sauce with that hint of spice cooked perfectly Chef Made sure not to overcook that. Unbelievable Paradise Look where we are Paradise Stunning Place Stunning Place Stunning.

Hey, somebody is got to do it. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. So now beautiful day in KAG on the boat with friends sharing a casa and oh my gosh, look what? I Found a big scampy and you know what the first thing you do with the big scampy baby. An explosion of flavors.

got one of the scampy take off the head. oh that was a splatter. Suck the head from the from. suck the juices from the head.

Wow. The complexity of flavor just bursting in your mouth. Man that's good. That's like a a scampy soup plus tomato sauce just embedded.

Oh wow. Absolutely stunning. And here we go. The body body.

oh the juices can kind of crack that and then I think break it from the bottom side. yeah revealing the the sweet meat on the inside. It really is incredibly sweet. What? I found so good.

the fried of the golf. the poor fish is the best Fish fried fish is best. Look at me the fried calamari. God This is amazing platter of fried seafood covered dusted in semolina flour fried until golden crispy.

okay wow oh oh wow. the freshness. the crispiness. That guy in the kitchen knows what he's doing.

Yeah seriously I don't know about the Fisher Chef is incredible. Yeah salty crisp be everything you could in oh man. crispiness. the freshness of wow.

Stunning. Oh wow. that is the plate of the meal. Yep unbelievable.

floating around in the Mediterranean Sea off the island of Sardinia eating the freshest catchup of the day cooked to Perfection this is something truly memorable was a disaster. but good. Yeah, we didn't catch a thing, we were supposed to go catching, didn't catch a thing, or didn't even try to go fishing. but it doesn't even matter.

One one biter. Oh wow man. oh it's so good. So soft, crunch, the bone is so soft.

Oh, it's really, really tasty. Nice. The pasta has arrived, The pasta has arrived and that was cooked in the broth of the seafood. or as many people say in Sardinia Frua Fra Safa It's a typical Sardinian ancient pasta and it's made from simola and water and salt.

That's it. Yeah, that's worth it. Can you do it or not? Wow. Eat something? No.

I Love the texture right? Oh man, the tomato broth, the seafood flavor from all that Seafood being boiled in that tomato sauce Eduardo is Sir concocting over here, he's squeezing out the head. Oh the scampy head. We squeezed the heads of the scampy into the frigola and we added a little bit of the fish from the original stock. You're a great man Eduardo That's just magnified the flavor.

Delicious! What a seafood meal! So it wasn't exactly a fishing trip, but it was a nice boat trip and some amazing like. The food was surprisingly delicious cooked on the boat. That fried squid Camari was probably the the highlight of the entire meal from here. We're driving uh to an Agri Turismo uh, kind of like a an outdoor Lodge where a man is then going to prepare for us a traditional Sardinian meal for dinner tonight.

He he says he's it's a jealous dog because he just does this too He's always hey thanks for bringing us man, what are we cooking here? we're we're cooking a suckling pig. It's a Sardinian tradition. Um, but we've lost the tradition of cooking suckling pig underground and Mikeli is one of the few people on the island who still do it. Um, it takes around 12 hours to cook.

Wow! and the reason why you would cook a suckling pig was you didn't want anybody to see you. Okay, so you know this was a land of Bandits Okay and there are feuds and so there are many reasons why you wouldn't want to be seen. Um, and and this is the origin of the suckling pig. Ah, and why it was cooked underground? Yes, okay, Mel was uh the the first person in Sardinia who coined his wines volcanic.

You know the Sicilians were very good with ET and everything you know. Sardinia is the one of the oldest lands in Europe it is actually the oldest piece of land in Europe It's volcanic yes and we're in front of an extinct volcano and then you can see here this is you know, look at you know it's and Mikel's wines are very minerally. You'll see they're just absolutely volcanic wines. The other thing I was telling you about when we do a suckling pig in Sardinia is we have wonderful wood.

Uh so the two bushes uh that give off a wonderful um Aroma one is called lentisco mastic, the Mio branches and the lentisco branches you will see when you eat the the suckling pig tonight or maybe tomorrow morning depending on how long this takes. Uh, you will see that uh you will taste all that those Aromas of that Oh man. a difference between the suckling pig underground and the sucking pig that we just usually use as a ro rotisserie is you will see since this is a slow cook and you cover it it just it it. it's just kind of melts off the bone.

Different Woods Using that's one of the most beautiful fires you'll ever see just crackling away that wood and the aroma coming off of it from all the different Woods burning and so now we're just going to wait I think till that heats up. uh before we load the pig. Oh it's just snapping some MTO berries if you want to taste it. it's very balsamic.

It's fairly fairly bitter. We we actually make a very nice Myto Jam but you use Quin Oh okay, you wouldn't do it 100% And this he's going to stuff stuff the pig with this with this herb. almost impossible in Sardinia to have myto without myto Soto is always on the on the court. This one or this one All of them.

All of them. Okay okay so you almost always with the red wine taste the balsamic. This is balsamic and you almost always have this in our red wines. a little chalky a little.

Juniper Almost M Excellent Yeah, very good. Sardinian Cuisine is extremely simple compared to Cuisine which can be very lot of ingredients. kind of busy. Um and this is it.

Exactly what you said. From the bush to the you know table. that's what they specialize in. Yes, everything local.

yeah and this is just going to be. you know the Theo uh the the pig and Sal that's it. The herb pot. oh the Rosemary oh it's going to go in too.

Oh yes. wow Yes. oh another giant pot of herbs, backyard herbs more getting stuffed into the pig. yeah it's so long.

take photo there, look how long it is so he's put SP in there. He closing their stomach I asked why why they don't do this anymore in Sgia. They says it. it takes too much time.

um a lot of people don't know how to do it anymore and it's just too expensive. We don't want to lose time when I come to M. I often come like 10 or 11 in the morning and uh, he said when you cook a suckling pig underground, it's beautiful to watch it go underground, but you never know how it's going to come out every time. It's different.

You don't have a thermometer to, you know. Oh yeah, so it's a guessing game by experience. Okay, he's going outside. Oh, he's heading off into the forest.

Oh, to cut some more herbs. Okay, oh, what is this one? Okay, Ah on. Aroma Oh nice. Okay, that's another herb.

another. Aroma Yes, he's A. He knows everything about the land here. I Love his hustle.

He just works so fast he's sprinting around. We'll only get half of it in the video. No, he knows he's man on a mission. He knows what he's doing, so he's covering it.

Inc Smells so festive. Yeah, that's amazing. He just ran to the bush, cut down half the bush, and he's wrapping the pig in an entire Bush of branches fresh green branch so that it protects. Yeah, they're very aromatic.

Yeah, it's festive, almost festive smelling stra. Bush Bundle The challenge of doing suckling pig is that it's not only the weather. you know, the different time of year, the the temperature of the air, but it's the. It's the humidity in the soil.

It's There's so many different variables, you never know how the pig is going to actually come out. So what he's trying to do right now is he's just trying to figure out what what the soil is this time of year. His fire, you know. And he's just kind of, you know, doing making an experienced calculation.

Yes, Yes, yeah, it is. You're going to taste this oil. Told it's a very expensive oil. It's uh, we use it for medicinal purposes.

This is mastic though too. Yes, this is. this is mastic. This is the mastic berries.

Okay, and you can eat them too. It's very very Yeah. Yeah yeah. Go ahead.

the mastic berries. My first time we use it. Um for skin lashes and birds and for stomach upset stomachs. Oh these are for horses when they have a wonderful a little bit bitter.

yeah, a little bitter and a little little peppery. Yeah, Oh oh that crackle goes the pig. Oh the pig. Wow.

Goodbye good piggy. Thank you. We love you. Oh and that immediately he's covering it with Earth has to work really fast too.

Flame On the Mhm. You want heat? you want to kill that flame immediately. Yeah and just get that. Steam and Vapor Oh man, the pig is in.

it's covered. But the process is not over. Now they're covering it with more logs, more fire goes on and it's supposed to cook for 12 hours. Whoa.

Looks like it might be fire on the bottom. fire on the top. 2021. Oh of course we handpick our grapes semi Dono or in the in the Sardinian dialect sem.

that's the wine. Yes, what is it? That's a reason for celebration? Oh that's refreshing. Now all you can do is wait. Now we have a I think a 6 hour wait until the pig will be ready.

In the meantime we're going to eat a lot of snacks, uh, hang out and just enjoy the beautiful night. Countryside in Sardinia This is something truly truly special. It's just when you're here you just feel the this immaculate nature peace and it's It's almost this unexplainable feeling of history and nature and land preservation and pastures. And it's kind of unexplainable, but something truly truly magnificent.

Goat salami, Goat salami. Never had goat salami before. This is the stomach of the the awesome. it's coming off the goat yes the the the covering you know Wow.

this is a goat ham goat that's regular wild pork, that's a goat sausage. It's time for the Forbidden cheese of Sardinia Man it's alive. you can smell it. They have to warm up a bit because they're cold now so they they're a little slow but once they wake up they'll start jumping all over the place.

Wow look at that texture looks like butter. Almost a bed bug looks like butter because they they kind of weave in and out you know? So one of the things I was really most interested to try coming to Sardinia is this type of cheese and it's called Kumaru Kumaru Kazumasu and John's going to really quickly give us a little briefing about it and what it is and how it's made. So Kazum Mar is the traditional Sardinian Shepherd's cheese and this is a cheese which is made you basically when you make a form of cheese you put little holes in it and you put it up on a shelf for the fruit flies. These these little fruit flies come and they lay their eggs here and then then you get this.

They actually work the cheese and make this wonderful cheese called Kazum Marsu and you cannot go visit a Sardinian Shepherd and he will always have this at Is it made from sheep milk? Yes sheep. It's a sheep cheese and how how long does it take to to ferment or ripen? It takes about a month. Okay okay and and the signature is that it always has the the live flies worms within it. Absolutely.

And Kazum Maru you see we keep it in a bag because the worms this is cold still but the worms will start jumping up and you will have. You'll have them all over you. Awesome Awesome Maggot cheese. Wow good I didn't know I Love maggots so muchu Maru yes oh man that's incredible.

Almost has this ammonia that fulfills your your face M says it gets your saliva going and it's very persistent. It's a long taste. As a matter of fact in 3 hours you'll still be tasting it. Can you say that is? Ultimate Fermented Persistent has a long taste cheese that you'll ever taste hours tasting it.

That is unbelievable. Wow it's strong Yeah what do you think? Ed A little so good it's very harsh. Not for everybody. it's very good.

It's intense. Those are the those are the live worms maggots the cheese cheese. I Can see him moving around to my understanding it's actually illegal, but it's not enforced because it's such a huge part of Sardinian Culture and everybody. literally everybody.

I Sardinia is a culture of shepherding. Um and everybody loves it. Everybody enjoys it and so that's also why it's called forbidden cheese. So it's the stomach of the kid.

it it's you take out the stomach, you empty it, you put in freshly squeezed milk and you then you put back the the little the stomach, the stones in the stomach which give off the renit and then you cure it in salt and then you're ready to go. These are two dishes which you always will have at Kazu with worms andit chees in the stomach yeah this is very hard to find u in in in the market. for example it's extremely hard to find something that you eat with the shepherd so we're trying the next cheesea stomach cheese. Oh yeah that's borderline yogurt.

like really creamy. Oh man that is intense. It's almost. It's almost fizzy on your tongue.

Oh man that's unbelievable flavor. You can just taste, it's alive man. both of those cheeses are two of the most intense cheeses you'll ever taste in your life. and really just straight up.

Sardinian Shepherd Cheese Unbelievable flavors. That I mean you can taste that that flavor is just going to be embedded onto your tongue. Maybe until tomorrow. I mean your tongue goes numb, goes num I have a little numbness on my tongue? Yeah literally.

So we're sitting down first before the pig for some snacks. I've never had goat, goat, ham and goat salami and then those cheeses are just unbelievable. just like mindblowing. Flavor Let's try some of I think this is the goat.

the goat goat salami Oh Manami is amazing. Melt in your mouth, it's like Cherry nutty. One of the great cheeses is this sheep stomach cheese which we tried and the texture look at I mean it's almost like it's like the texture of sticky peanut butter but fermented in the the kids or the the baby goat's stomach. Unbelievable.

Wow. Lally just goes into your brain man the cheese is almost intoxicating. Thank just totally. Mar Straight to your brain am I Turning turning into a turning green, turning into a shepherd with every bite of that cheese we've got the next the The Kasum.

Maru again another bite of the the live maggot cheese. It's the most one of the most intense things you could put in your mouth. Oh man. actually it's kind of sweet and nutty, right? Yeah, totally man.

just again. just like a little caramelly almost but like like just mind-blowing flavor that goes to your brain. The only thing I can think of that I've eaten that even that is almost similar actually is this: 2-year-old uh, you had the 2-year fermented stinky tofu. Oh yeah, twoy old 2y old.

it's it tastes like oh man, that's almost what it. It's actually very similar. Oh yes, it's time for pasta. And this is a special type of pasta.

Uh, which is from Sardinia Oh man, oh that is so good. Tomatoes, the cheese on top, the texture of the pasta. which you say these are little Rings or almost like an earring. the chewi.

it's almost midnight and it's time. Man, there's still so much heat in there after six hours. there it is. Wow.

Look at that smoke near room of those baked leaves and branches smell incredible. C Good. C Perfect. And those herbs smell incredible.

The B leaves the Mystique yeah. did you notice the garden shears? That's awesome. The wire cutter, the metal cutter one second, just one one. The rebar cutter.

oh my. God don't oh man man there. Smokey the herbs. You can taste every single herb.

Yeah, you can taste those herbs like embedded into the meat. Oh it's so good. Wow. perfect.

You don't want to cook that one more minut perfo fecto. Thank you. Yeah, that is insane. It melts in your mouth, it's cooked perfectly, and again, the herbs just totally transform the flavor of that.

Oh man, that was worth the wait. Unbelievably tasty and earthy. And Smokey M Wi what a man using garden shears and just feeding us bite by bite just keeps coming I mean M it. It's juicy.

it's I got it. I got it. It's herbaceous. I've never had a pig like that.

No, it's totally unique, unique. Every now and then you get a little bit of soil and even that tastes good. That right? Yeah yeah, this is like the real the volcanic soil of Sardinia even tastes good. Oh man, what an incredible day! I Absolutely love the people, the food, the lifestyle of Sardinia I Want to say huge thank you to Eduardo to John to Michaela and to everyone for hosting us today.

It's been outstanding! and I want to say a big thank you to you for watching this video. Please remember to give it a thumbs up and remember to subscribe for lot more Italian Food coming your way. Stay tuned, you're not going to want to miss it. Thanks again for watching Good Night from Sardinia.