Meat and Poultry

As mountain dwellers, Sardinians have always eaten plenty of meat. Animals are a precious commodity in farming communities, however: sheep and goats provide milk and wool, hens lay eggs, and cattle provide milk or pull ploughs, so they aren’t killed lightly. Therefore, pork, mutton and wild game are traditionally the most common meats. Pigs are hardy animals, happy to live on whatever scraps a farmer’s family can spare, and so almost every household could afford to keep a pig, which would be killed by the family or the travelling butcher in autumn. It’s been said that the only part of a pig that isn’t eaten is the squeal... and the practical Sardinians make sure that nothing goes to waste, salting and curing what can’t be eaten fresh and using every scrap and off-cut in sausages or hearty ragùs.