In Search of Su Filindeu
Like all the best road trips, this could get emotional.
We were in Sardinia; Karen mainly for the sun and me for pasta. A trip to the island had been on my bucket list for the best part of a decade, as I wanted to learn how to make a style of pasta called "su filindeu," which rather romantically translates as the "Threads of God" and which only a handful of people on the planet know how to make.
The trouble was, the trip was going to be spent under a cloud of grief for Nick, a dear friend of 38 years who died far too young and to who we had only said our final goodbyes a few days previously.
Karen and I agreed before getting on the plane that this wouldn't be a sombre break. Our holidays are typically quite lazy. We generally just love pottering around narrow streets, eating free samples of mediocre, tourist-priced chocolate, soaking up the atmosphere, and drinking espresso with any local who will believe us that Brexit was not in our name.
This time, though, we needed an uncharacteristically busy itinerary to ensure plenty of distractions. Sardinia didn't disappoint.
We knew that we did not need to feel guilty about enjoying ourselves. We would eat good food, swim in clear waters, and chuckle at podcasts as we ventured from town to town.
Nick loved exploring and would be annoyed if we visited a country and spent the whole time wallowing. And anyway, a friend who has had more than her fair share of loss reassured me that grief and happiness are not mutually exclusive and can both exist at the same time. I'd never really thought about it like that.
Regardless, there was no denying our sadness. Ignoring it would be unjust, and acknowledging my natural but unhealthy gravitation towards rumination meant I had to own this grief before it owned me.
I had spent three weeks with Nick travelling around Italy almost 25 years ago, so I figured a road trip to find the rarest pasta on earth was an adventure he'd like to join us on.
We wouldn't get robbed this time on the train from Naples to Palermo. Instead, we would look at some photos of him, share our favourite memories, and put Radiohead and Sigur Rós on full blast.
If we were going to do this road trip at all, we were going to do it right and do it good. The full English.
Being 44 means I'm a little less crass these days than to balance a nun on a mate's hand outside the Vatican (in a nod to the photo that everyone takes when they visit Pisa), but that didn't mean the trip had to be without humour.
I was ultimately here to learn how to make su filindeu, a style of pasta that is the stuff of legends.
Biannually, pilgrims travel on foot and horseback for miles under the cover of darkness to give thanks to Saint Francesco. On arrival, they are served a bowl of su filindeu in mutton broth, a recipe I have perfected over many attempts, and that is now a dish I reserve for those I love the most.
When I heard that one of the pilgrimages takes place on October 4th, I momentarily thought about extending the break to experience it for myself. Better judgment quickly kicked in. It was the villagers' day, not mine. And anyway, I've only ever gate-crashed a stranger's party once, and that was with Nick. The experience was somewhat overrated, but at least we can say we did it once.
On the day of the lesson, I bounced out of bed with gusto. Karen and I had spent the night in the stunning town of Alghero in northwest Sardinia, where we had accidentally bought the biggest pizza known to Man.
Sometimes, language barriers have their benefits.
Today I would drive cross-country and finally tick off one of my bucket list wishes. It was an early start, and we hadn't packed, so we were scrambling around like idiots. It must have been 15 minutes before Nick entered my thoughts. A record so far.
Sardinian roads are treacherous. The never-ending tracks look amazing when Jeremy Clarkson is throwing a Lamborghini down them, but they become a real pain in the neck when you just want to get to your destination and watch the sun set with a cold beer.
Our rental car was a piece of junk with a dashboard full of flashing warning signs that would put a tacky Christmas tree to shame. It's Sixt from here on in. Penny pinching is almost always a false economy.
En route, we tried and failed to find a natural hot spring, saved a tortoise from getting squished, and doffed our caps to some of the 3,000,000 sheep who momentarily call Sardinia their home.
We pulled over from time to time. If there's anything more dangerous than this death-trap of a car, it's trying to navigate Sardinian roads through glassy eyes.
We briefly stopped at Gairo Vecchio, the island's most famous ghost town. Built on unstable ground, it started crumbling before a huge flood destroyed it. The villagers fled, never to return.
Karen found the place rather eerie, but it reminded me a little of visiting Pompeii with Nick, which comforted me and gave me the strength to explore solo.
The next stop was Lula. I decided that if I was to dive into the pasta that has such local origins, then I must take a potter around this quaint and unassuming village, home to some of the only women on earth who know how to make it.
Finding someone to show me the ropes was no easy task. The women in the village used to open their doors to curious pasta makers happily but now prefer to protect their secret before their unique style of pasta becomes ubiquitous and mainstream.
I respect that, but as a kid, I always wanted to find out how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear, even though I knew it would be crushingly disappointing when I found out the answer. At my age, there is little chance of shaking that inquisitive nature.
We eventually tracked down a restaurant's owner and head chef south of the island. At first, Marina Ravarotto declined to teach me as she speaks no English, and I speak only a few words of Italian. A volley of emails followed, and in a last-ditch attempt to reassure her that I would be a good student, I said I was fluent in pasta and confident that was the only language we'd need.
She seemed to like that because, within an hour, the deal was clinched.
We arrived at our scheduled lesson with seconds to spare and were greeted with a beaming, cheeky smile. Despite us not understanding a word the other one was saying (and with no internet connection to help with translation), we seemed to smile and nod at the correct times, and the lesson got underway with the help of facial expressions, international sign language, and mime.
Although now based in the Sardinian capital Cagliari, where there are more opportunities for ambitious chefs than in the countryside, she cut her teeth in her hometown of Nuoro, where su finder hails from, and learned pasta-making from the authentic originals.
Marina prepared the dough beforehand to allow it to relax for a few hours in the fridge, although the semolina-water ratios are not unique or unusual.
First up was a mesmerising demonstration. Marina's workstation consisted of a wooden pasta board and two bowls containing plain and heavily salted water. To her left was a "fundu," a 64cm diameter circular board custom-woven from the leaves of the local asphodel plant and not for sale at any price.
Marina awakened the dough with a minute or two of heavy kneading, and she occasionally dipped her fingers into each bowl until the dough was exactly as she wanted. She said the salt water was to aid elasticity, and the plain water was to keep the dough hydrated. When to dip your fingers, which bowl to dip them into, and how much water to take can't be taught. Fluctuations in air temperature and humidity mean you must "sense" when the dough is correct, and that can only happen through practice, failure, and more practice.
The technique is simple enough on paper. You make a long, thin sausage of dough, loop it, and pinch the ends together to make two strands. You then pull those strands as wide as your arms can stretch and link again to create four strands. Repeat that five times, and you end up with 256 fragile strands laid in three directions on the fundu.
The board is then placed in the Sardinian sun for a few hours to create an extremely brittle, circular sheet of pasta, which is broken into pieces about the size of a playing card.
By the end of the three-hour lesson, I was consistently doing four pulls well, five pulls regularly, six if I was lucky, and in an insane moment of beginner's luck, I managed the magic seven. That earned me the right to add my contribution to the board, essentially the pasta equivalent of learning the five-point palm exploding heart technique.
Despite my extreme concentration and severe demeanour in the photo below, I was bouncing inside like a puppy with pride and excitement.
We dined in Marina's restaurant that night. We raised a glass to Nick while enjoying her unforgettable su filindeu, served in a mutton broth with small pieces of fresh, slightly acidic pecorino cheese.
As we were leaving, Marina came bounding out of the kitchen to say her goodbyes. Two kisses in Europe are de rigueur, but when you get three, you know you've made a friend. That was flattering.
On our short walk back to the apartment, we passed a tiny church and ventured inside. I'd never lit a church candle before, but now seemed an appropriate time to put that right.
We lit the candle, watched it flicker for a few minutes, and allowed ourselves a few moments to understand the gravity of our loss. The candle was ultimately for Nick, of course, but also for his mother Angela, father Philip, wife Sam, and daughter Grace, whose lives we intend to be a part of as long as they want to be part of ours.
Nick would have enjoyed the trip, for sure. I had one of the best nights' sleep for weeks, comforted by knowing that I hadn't just found su filindeu that day but a little chink of peace too.
Nick Muzzlewhite (Muzz): 1978-2023