Day 5: A Oristano, e Fregula!

My favorite Sardinian food.  It’s called fregula (FRAY-goo-la).  It’s a small pasta, kind of like a large couscous.  It can be served all kinds of different ways, in a sauce or in a broth.  Attached was my favorite meal of the trip.  I’m not even a shellfish person; the pasta is the real star of the dish.  They cook it in broth so it’s packed with flavor.  Here you can see there are mussels, cherry tomatoes, whole cloves of garlic, herbs… and the whole experience was heightened by the cool breezy beachfront surroundings, and the thrill at how easy it is to find good food without trying.  This was a random beach restaurant in a random town we’d wandered into for lunch, killing time after checking out of Cagliari and heading to our next lodging in Oristano, a medieval town up the west coast.  History note, apropos of nothing: the beach was adjacent to a town designed by Mussolini and created out of swamps he had ordered drained.