Until now, I have only visited Sardinia’s coast. They were trips long enough for my partner’s band to play one, maybe two concerts in a venue on a beach, to wander a bit, swim and to be given inland recommendations, before catching the night ferry back to the mainland. We would also make sure to eat seadas, which have nothing at all to do with the sea and are pronounced say-ah-das.
The name seada or sebada (plural seadas or sebadas) is thought to originate from the Sardinian sebu/seu, which indicates animal fat – the lard used in the pasta, in this case. A pastoral dish for a pastoral island, seadas’ traditional filling is casu furriau, or fresh pecorino that hasn’t been aged. It is traditional, too, that the young, sweet, milky cheese is wrapped in cloth and left out for two days, so it turns gently acidic. The pecorino is then cut into pieces and melted in a terracotta dish, along with water, citrus zest and flour, until creamy and pliable enough to be shaped, with wet hands, into sink-plug discs of filling that are then enclosed in pasta and deep-fried.
