Seafood

Until relatively recently, seafood didn’t feature strongly in Sardinian cooking, as most of the island’s population lived inland in the hills and mountains. Centuries of invasion by foreign powers and pirate raids had taught the people to be wary of the sea and the coast. Foreigners were Sardinia’s first real fishermen: Ligurians, who founded the town of Carloforte on the island of San Pietro to fish for tuna, didn’t share the Sardinians’ suspicion of the sea – and the tuna industry still thrives on this small island southwest of the Sardinian mainland, which hosts an annual tuna festival in May.