Summer in the Islands: An Italian Odyssey

by Matthew Fort

  Rarely have I left a town with such relief as I leave Stintino, with its dinky pastel houses, its venal restaurateurs, its dark, dank developments, its slovenly cynicism. It seems an odd place for those giants of Australian tennis, John Newcombe and Tony Roche to have once run a tennis club. On the outskirts I pass the old, abandoned fishing stations and tuna processing plants and derelict farm buildings, the crusted, decaying husk of past industry encasing the tawdry contemporary kernel of the town. Soon I’m relieved to be bowling southwards along empty minor roads that wind between hills cloaked with the dark, rough green of cork trees, ilex, myrtle and sessile oak, heading for Alghero.

  Old Alghero is romantic to the eye, as the guidebooks said it would be. The port is picturesque. The sea walls are massive. There are battlements, bastions, posterns, ramparts, abutments, old cannons, imposing gates. There are winding streets with cobbles and corbels. There are tasteful buildings with eighteenth-century form and grace. There’s an impressive Catalan-Gothic cathedral, La Cattedrale di Santa Maria Immacolata di Alghero. The town is wreathed in history and oddity. The natives speak a variant of Catalan, a legacy from when the town had been under Spanish control, and was resettled by Catalans in 1372. The street names are in Catalan and its classic dishes – cassola de peix, polpo alls catalana, arragosta alls catalana, paella algherese – owe more to Catalonia than they do to Italian tradition.

  Above all, Old Alghero has shops. Shops, shops, shops, shops for sandals, ‘coral’ jewellery, shoes, handbags, dresses, summer clothing, general tat, specific tat, rat-a-tat-tat tat, belts, scarves, ‘typical Sardinian foods’, souvenirs, knick-knacks of every persuasion. And those shops that aren’t shops, are bars, gelaterias, pizzerias, spaghetterias, paninerias, osterias, trattorias, ristoranti. Shoppertunity knocks on every hand.

  The streets are full of people walking very slowly up and down, round and round, licking ice creams and apparently mesmerised by the flash of colour, the flutter of fabric, the gleam and glitter of stuff and the music of menus calling them to eat.

  It doesn’t help that the weather’s pretty dreary, wavering between the damp and the downright wet, with only occasional flashes of sunshine. I can only admire the spirit and professionalism of the waiters and waitresses as they attempt to beguile and cajole passers-by, flick out tablecloths, lay the glasses and cutlery on tables set outside, only to whisk everything off a few minutes later as the first drops begin to fall again. Pods of visitors, water dripping off their nylon waterproofs, huddle indoors and douse their gloom with beer, wine and Aperol spritzers.

  Just beyond the towering walls of Old Alghero is another Alghero that isn’t in thrall to a Catalan cultural makeover or commercial glitz, a more humdrum, everyday, grittier Alghero of chemists, scooter service garages, laundries, bakeries, greengrocers, butchers, a market and mobile phone shops, where people live, many of them in houses of unimpeachable vulgarity; a newer Alghero where the sense of normality, energy and life is palpable compared to the waking dream of Old Alghero.

  It’s Monday and most restaurants are shut, but not I Pronti z Cuocere in Alghero market. There’s no market business today, but one waitress and one cook are getting ready for business when I wander in. It’s more of a pop-up caff than a trattoria proper. Moulded plastic garden tables and chairs colonise a corner of the market, with emerald green paper tablecloths, cheap glasses and cutlery. The menu’s written with felt tip pen on rough paper splodged and wine stained.

  It’s grigliata mista di suino for me – a slab of belly pork, a couple of sausages, a thin pork chop, a slice of capocollo, all grilled, slightly shiny with fat, rich and chewy. Oh, what a relief to chew on meat again, after weeks of nonstop fish. There’s a crunchy, bitter salad, too. I squeeze a lemon and splash some oil over it, and pour over the meat juices for good measure. Bread with a spring to it, and a whiff of sourness, a litre of perfectly drinkable red wine, water and the bill was twenty euros all in. It may be food reduced to the fundamentals, but each fundamental is very sound, and I’m happy to be there, happy to have eaten well. It’s as refreshing as a mountain stream after the relentless sales-pitch-and-polish of old Alghero. It reminds me of the fabulously enjoyable lunch that I had eaten on the platform of the railway station at Villarosa in Sicily about eight years earlier. The view is less intoxicating and the lighting not exactly flattering, but the food and the place have the same sense of unpretentious, unexpected delight.

  Fertilia lies just off the road a few kilometres north of Alghero. I’d passed the turning to it on my way, but I’m curious to take a closer look. It’s a small town that had been developed in the 1930s to house agricultural labourers as part of a fascist grand scheme of land reclamation.

  I expect a seedy, down-at-heel, broken-backed town, but I’m agreeably surprised. It may be struggling – graffiti, crumbling plaster, some rundown corners and sad apartment blocks suggest it might be – but, overlooking the sea, it has the homogeneity and handsome regularity of model town planning. Even on a grey, blustery day, when the sea runs murky and choppy, the arcaded main street lined with palms, copses of pines and exhortatory scenes carved on the square-shouldered public buildings have a sense of serious purpose and human scale unlike the brutal bombast of the Third Reich; and some of the grander seaside villas of the same period have a delicious elegance and playfulness. I can think of a good many developments of the same period, and more recent ones, in my own country that have fared and look worse.

  The odd car goes by, but there are few people on the street. It may be the weather or it may be the World Cup. I notice a German flag fluttering from the awning outside a café. Below it an intent group of Germans range around a large television watching their national team.

  The scene makes me nostalgic. I spent the summer of 1966 staying with my uncle John and his wife, Brenda, in the Monte Lucretili beyond Tivoli. Because England won the World Cup that year, beating Germany in the final, it was seen to be bella figura to have an Englishman playing in the local football team. On this dubious principle I was selected to play for Licenza. Had my fellow players had any prior knowledge of just how bad I was, I would certainly not have been picked.

  However, like Chesterton’s ass, I had ‘one short hour and sweet’, a moment of glory on which I dined, quite literally, for years after. It came in the dying minutes of the needle match of the year, the Married vs the Unmarried men of Licenza. I was selected for the Unmarrieds, and the whole village turned out to watch.

  In those days there was not a blade of grass on the pitch, and there were several boulders to contend with, some much the same shape and size as the football itself. I decided to station myself as the penalty area poacher, which meant that I didn’t have to run about too much, and stood less chance of making an absolute ass of myself.

  We had one or two seriously talented players, men who could tame a bouncing ball with the caress of the inside of their boot, slide through a pass with slide-rule precision, turn on a sixpence, and shoot with explosive power. About two minutes before the end of the game, one of these gifted players, Davide, pounced on a loose clearance, flicked the ball forward and unleashed a ferocious shot.

  I stood rooted to the spot, admiring this fabulous piece of football skill. I turned towards the goal just as the Marrieds’ goalkeeper performed a feat of aerial acrobatics, diving across the goalmouth to punch the ball away. Unfortunately for him, the punched ball hit my knee and, while he lay on the ground, bounced over his helpless body and into the goal. I was engulfed by my fellow Unmarrieds and carried triumphantly off the pitch. I’ve rarely felt so fraudulent.

  It transpired that this had been the first goal scored in this particular game practically in living memory and for years after I was treated to free pizza and wine in the piazza of Licenza as people told and re-told this moment of football history. ‘Ti ricordi, Matteo?’ I still do.

  With some relief I leave Alghero and set off south along the SP105 that runs along the coast. It should be a dramatic ride, but
mist, drizzle and intermittent rain rather take the edge off sybaritic travel. In some places the road seems merely tacked onto cliffs that drop sheer to the water, at others it winds its way between craggy hills of khaki. It’s as if I’ve strayed into one of the more spectacular reaches of the Scottish Highlands on a dank summer day rather than meandering along the sun-baked coast of Sardinia.

  I turn inland at Bosa, a children’s model of a town of houses painted hydrangea pink, blue, yellow, green and cream hunched beneath the squat walls of the twelfth-century Castello Malaspina. I pass through Tinnura where many of the buildings are decorated with neo-realistic paintings of Garibaldi, or sheep shearing and other rustic pursuits. The road climbs up and up the rampart of the Monte Ferru shaggy with cork, chestnut, oak and yew, cold as all Harry, comes down through upland pastures to a dusty, flat agricultural plain, and makes for Paulilatino, a substantial rural village, where a B&B run by Peppino Sanna, a cheesemaker, and his sister Raimonda, is to be my base for the next couple of days.

  The dogs and cocks wake me. It’s 5.45 a.m. I doze in a daze. The church clock sounds 6 a.m. Collared doves begin rurr-rurring. Sparrows chirp. Boots rattle over cobbles. Voices. ‘Buongior.’ ‘Buongior.’ Cars, trucks rev, roar, go.

  It’s 8.30 a.m. Breakfast: trecce, strands of cheese woven like a tress of hair, a pale as alabaster, firm and muscular, the freshest of Peppino Sanna’s fresh cheeses, still warm. It squeaks as I break a piece off. It has the same rubbery consistency as mozzarella, but it’s tenser, denser, with a breezy airiness, like eating whiteness and flowers misted with lemon. Black coffee. Ciambellone della nonna, a cake of just flour, sugar, a little olive oil, and yeast with a light, fluffy crumb, as delicate as linen.

  It’s difficult to work out the exact geography of Paulilatino. The village is a complicated knot of short streets of stern, frowning houses. Only one or two are taller than two storeys, their walls of irregular dark stones set in lighter plaster or cement, with big, grey lintels around the doors and windows, and fancy wrought-iron balconies and grilles, reminders of a more prosperous past.

  There’s no escaping the sense of economic hardship. It has none of the brisk vitality of a thriving community. A dusty listlessness hangs over the place. Few people walk along the pavements. The shops and bars are quiet and spiritless, the pavements empty for the most part. Cars pass through it as if hardly registering its existence. Paulilatino feels as if it’s moored at some out-of-the-way quay waiting to be broken up.

  It’s curious the difference a few kilometres makes. While Paulilatino lies inert in a flat plain, about twelve kilometres away Santu Lussurgiu tumbles down the lower slopes of the Monte Ferru, its streets twisting, following the caprices of geography, perky with prosperity. It’s difficult to see why Santu Lussurgiu should have fared better than Paulilatino, but it has an alertness, a vivacity and self-possession that its near neighbour has lost. Perhaps the secret lies in the number of small artisan craft producers – iron-workers, weavers, dyers, cabinetmakers and knife-makers.

  I almost miss Vittorio Mura e Figli, set back from the road at a sharp corner behind a metal fence, more a place of manufacture than a snazzy retail opportunity. The workshop is a large open space cluttered with work benches and veteran bits of machinery, all with a dull, gunmetal patina from metal dust and fine oil. Piero Mura rests his forearms on a broad counter of glass-fronted cabinets, knives neatly lined up in them. He must be in his sixties, bespectacled, with waves of dark hair scrolling back from his forehead and the slightly weary expression of someone who has seen a great deal of life.

  ‘This is a pattada,’ he explains. ‘The knife a contadino uses every day for killing animals, sheep, goats, for cutting and chopping, too. It’s a knife you can use for almost anything. It’s known as la resolva around here.’ The blade’s about 10cm long, slender, tapering to a viciously functional point. The handle sits lightly and elegantly in the hand, a brass band marking the point where blade and handle meet. The blade swivels back into the handle. It’s an exquisitely practical tool.

  ‘Then this one,’ Piero says, ‘is an arburesa, with a heavier, rounded blade for skinning. Wild boar, pigs, sheep. And this one is called guspine. It looks like an old fashioned razor, but it’s for cutting the bark off cork trees and shaping the corks.’

  John Irving once explained to me that you rarely find a knife laid by your plate when you sit down to a meal in the house in rural Sardinia because every self-respecting Sardinian carries his or her own. Knives have an emblematic significance as well as practical uses. However, while they may still have a central part in Sardinian culture, progress being what it is, Vittorio Mura e Figli is one of a diminishing number of traditional Sardinian knife makers. Tradition means forging their own blades by heating up the metal tang in a forge, bashing it with a hammer until it’s thin enough and properly shaped to start the process of sharpening and polishing. With that endless refinement of detail in which all Italian artisans that I’ve ever met take such delight, Piero explains that it was better to heat the forge with charcoal than mere coal, which contains chemical impurities that could affect the final blade.

  ‘Of course, it depends whether you’re using stainless or carbon steel. Stainless is OK, but I prefer carbon. It’s the traditional material, and takes a better edge. But have a look at this.’ He rummages around beneath the counter and brings out a handleless blade with a brilliant sheen. It looks as if threads of oil are moving on its surface. His eyes glow with pleasure at the sight of it.

  ‘Damascene steel, the finest of all.’ He runs his fingers up and down the blade. ‘We make them by beating layers of stainless and carbon steel together, folding them over and beating them again, many times, the way the Japanese sword makers make katana swords. That’s why the blade has these patterns in it. It’s beautiful, strong and very sharp. A real knife. It takes a lot of hours to make such a knife.’

  When the blade’s ready, it’s fitted into its handle.

  ‘The best handles are made from muflone,’ says Piero.

  Mufloni are wild sheep with great curling horns the colour of cigarette smoke that wander the thickly wooded mountains above Santu Lussurgiu.

  ‘You can also use cattle horn and wood, but muflone is best. The cattle horn will flake after a while, and wood will fall apart eventually. But muflone lasts for ever,’ says Piero.

  He brings out two massive knives. One is 160 years old, and the other 200. The handles are smooth with use, and have turned creamy amber. The blades are heavy and dark, and sharp enough to take off the head of a wild boar.

  The Mura family have been making Sardinian knives for generations, says Piero. He began learning his trade when he was a child. ‘I’d come here after school. It’s a real craft making good knives. It takes discipline and concentration. I am a knife-maker. That’s what I am.’

  He says he’s pleased that his son has joined him and his brothers, although he worries that he may have started too late. ‘He went to university. He’s got a degree. But there’s no work for boys with degrees, so he’s come to join me here. But he’s old to start learning this craft. You have to know, understand, so many things.’ He sighs.

  I buy a pattada with a handle made from muflone, enchanted by the beauty of its shape, its heft and balance, the way it feels in my hand.

  On the way back to Paulilatino, I take a side road to San Leonardo. I’d picked up the name of a trattoria, Le Sorgenti, from a shiny brochure about the area, and it seems worth investigating.

  San Leonardo is tranquil to the point of somnolence, tucked away among the dripping, tree-shrouded slopes of the Monte Ferru. Le Sorgenti is a sturdy temple to local taste. The walls are a shade of burnt orange, the tiled floor brown, the tables and chairs built to last. At one of them sit four workmen in orange overalls. I’d seen them cutting back the herbage on the roadside earlier. A couple of vigorous village elders chunter away at another table. There’s a middle-aged son and his mother, and a young couple over by the window.
/>
  Plates of antipasti start arriving: tiny rolls of crisp pancetta, with crunchy fried mushrooms; a plate of chunks of funghi porcini slippery in oil, with a breath of vinegar and slivers of bitter deep purple radicchio; a block of fresh sheep’s cheese with the springy texture of sourdough bread, cool and lemony; olives and artichoke hearts in oil; silky slices of pink ham with a dainty frill of white fat; more mushrooms, cold, black and tasting of fallen leaves.

  A storm bursts outside. The leaves on the chestnut trees surrounding the trattoria toss agitatedly in the wind, rain dripping from them. The village elders chunter on, demolishing a plate of pane carasau and then a heap of wild boar so fragrant, so potent I can smell it twenty feet away. The workmen pay up and push outside. The son and his mother keep up a desultory conversation and the couple by the window watch each other in silence.

  ‘Tagliatelle con ragù di bue rosso’ says la signora bringing the plate. I’m not sure to which breed of cattle bue rosso refers. It could be razza sarda or sarda modicana, but there’s the usual confusion over local names that frustrates every questing gastronome in search of literal accuracy. It isn’t the first time I’ve come across bue rosso, and it seems reserved for steak and meat sauces. And, bloody hell, this tagliatelle is good – sinuous, strapping pasta with that faint flavour of malt and toast, slithery with the bonny, big, beefy sauce.

  A plate of Casilozu, one of Sardinia’s rare cow’s milk cheeses, to finish. It’s rich, slightly buttery, with a clean tang; not as sharp as ewe’s milk cheese, but enough to balance the richness. I wonder if it’s made by Peppino Sanna.