When Sardinians talk about the rest of Italy, they refer to it as il continente (the continent). Isolated from the rest of Italy and Europe, Sardegna is the second largest island in the Mediterranean. Unlike other Mediterranean islands though, these natives live in the island's mountainous and forbidding interior, not on the coast.

There's good reason the Sardinians didn't claim the island's shoreline as their own until recently: one, they fled inland to escape invaders (who never ventured far beyond the coast) and two, they kept clear of the marshy coast to escape the plague of malaria there. As a result, Sardegna has two distinct cuisines: coastal and inland. The coastal cuisine was influenced by invaders, who brought their ways of preparing the bounty of seafood available, including lobsters, which are rare elsewhere in Italy. Traditional Sardinian dishes are not seafood-based at all. Instead, they lean heavily on milk, cheese, roasted meat, and bread. Women typically cook the bread, while men cook meat (usually whole and often flavored with mint and myrtle outdoors.

Sardinians learned their pasta-making skills from the Genoese. But the style of pasta, made with hard-wheat semolina, is most similar to southern pasta. Sardinians add a pinch of saffron to dough to make the local specialty, malloreddus. The cheese in Sardegna -- particularly sheep's milk -- is among the best in Italy, but it rarely leaves the island. Figs, almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts all grow well on the island and are the basis for many of the island's characteristically small, sweet pastries.

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