Finding Sardinia's infamous rotten cheese
A tale of love and larvae
I was deep in the throes of an edit this week, the difficult kind where I had too much material and too much emotional attachment to every great soundbite. As my computer succumbed to the spinning wheel of death, I picked up my phone and was immediately taunted by iPhone’s “One Year Ago” recap reminding me that exactly 365 days ago I was planted on the sandy white beaches of Sardinia, in the bright and mild weather of mid-October, without a soul around except for Mohamed, which was fitting because it was our honeymoon.
After planning and executing the wedding largely on our own, the idea of traveling far away for an exotic getaway underneath palm trees sounded exhausting. We went over a few different options but ultimately decided on Sardinia, a large Italian island in the Mediterranean, easily reachable via an overnight ferry from France.
While researching our trip, we researched hotels and car rentals and points of interest, but none of that was particularly exciting compared to our discovery of one Sardinian speciality: casu martzu (literally: rotten cheese). This wheel of pecorino (a hard cheese made from sheep’s milk) is purposefully infected with a certain type of cheese fly which then leaves its larvae inside the cheese. After several months, the cheese is crawling with maggots, which give it a unique flavor and texture and have made it one of the Sards’ most prized delicacies.
Although I wasn’t familiar with it, casu martzu is not exactly unknown. There are hundreds of articles and videos about it online calling it Italy’s illegal cheese. Since the product cannot be sold according to EU food safety regulations (worm-filled cheese is a no-go, shocking) it is produced in small qualities for personal consumption and you won’t find it advertised. This left me wondering whether it was truly something consumed on the regular or more of a legend that’s fun to read about online.
With casu martzu comfortably resting in the back of our minds, we headed off to Sardinia with the ferry. We first spent a few days in the cozy coastal city of Alghero, where every restaurant seemed to advertise a Paella menu next to an image of the Catalonian flag. I was confused by what seemed like an odd effort to attract Spanish tourists, but I later learned that Alghero was once occupied by its nearest easterly neighbor.
“The kingdom of Sardinia remained Iberian for approximately four hundred years, from 1323 to 1720, assimilating a number of the Spanish traditions, customs, linguistic expressions and lifestyles…” (Source)
We didn’t go for the paella, but we did make a reservation at Ristorante Mabrouk, a local spot with an Arabic name that serves a distinctly Sardinian seafood menu. The concept is simple: for 50 euros per person, the server will bring you various plates of antipasti, including steamed mussels, homemade pasta, and local produce, each slightly larger than the next, until you start to sweat and feel woozy from overeating. At that point, with a wink, the server will set down an entire grilled fish, which looks absolutely delectable, but one more bite will leave you deceased in the restaurant. And no, they will not let you take it to go. I asked.
Moral of the story: Do go to Ristorante Mabrouk, and go hungry.
After an enchanting week on the northern coast of Sardinia and the stunning beaches of the Maddalena archipelago, we headed to Stintino, a peninsula on the island’s northeast coast. Stintino is known primarily for having one very beautiful beach and being the gateway to Asinara National Park, an island that was once home to thousands of prisoners, from Austro-Hungarian soldiers during the First World War all the way to mafia bosses in the 1990s.
Today, Asinara is a nature preserve best known for its ruins and the population of white donkeys that have taken over the island. Tourism is only allowed under certain conditions and visitors must stick to marked paths that run across the island.
On our first day in Stintino, the town was eerily quiet. Most of the shops were closed and the tourists that kept the place alive during the summer months had all returned home. It was a bright, sunny day and we wanted to go to Asinara, which was visible across the water.
We wandered around the port looking for information until we arrived at the office of the sole tour company making the trip and discovered we had missed the only boat of the day by 30 minutes. As the next one might not be for a few more days, our other option, we were told, was to try to rent a private boat and captain to ferry us over.
We hung around for a while but the small port was deserted and our chances were looking slim. Just as we were about to leave, a local Italian forest ranger came over to ask what we might be looking for. We explained our predicament and to our surprise, our new acquaintance Antonio jumped into action to see if he could help. After a few phone calls, it became clear that we would not be able to visit Asinara until the next tour boat left, whenever that might be.
The story might have ended there, but Antonio was off the next day, and generously offered to take us on his own boat to see a few sights around the island. He seemed kind and trustworthy so we agreed.
The next morning, we met him at another port town down the coast for breakfast at a cafe. The sky was cloudy and not the best for sailing, but Antonio had already made other plans. We got in his car and let him drive without asking too many questions. Along the way, we chatted about his work and hobbies which included raising sea turtles on Asinara and cooking fresh seafood dinners for his friends on his boat.
When we finally arrived, we discovered we were at Neptune’s Grotto, the largest cave complex in Sardinia. After descending 654 stairs (also built by prisoners of a penal colony) from the top of the cliff to the sea below, we entered an enormous cavern carved into the rock by the powerful waves beating at its doorstep. Inside, there was a short guided tour of large pools surrounded by impressive stalactites and mites. We more fully grasped the concept of 654 stairs on the way out, and we re-emerged at the top of the cliff quite hungry and thirsty.
Again, Antonio had it all figured out. We drove a ways down the road and then pulled off to the side at an overlook with a beautiful view of the grassy cliffs and white-capped ocean below. Antonio opened his cooler and took out a red and white checkered table cloth to spread across the hood of his car. Then, he reached into the cooler once more and pulled out a small gelato container that was no longer filled with ice cream.
He opened it, and behold: it was casu martzu. He had brought it from home to baptize us into the true world of Sardinian cuisine. He wanted us to have the authentic experience, and we got it.
It was exactly as described. Pure white maggots crawled and jumped in every direction. The cheese was granular with little pockets where the larvae had eaten their way through. The odor was pungent, but that was nothing compared to the taste.
Antonio opened a bag of Sardinian flat bread called carasau and scooped out some cheese with his knife. As he smeared it on the bread, he excitedly explained how the bodies of all the little worms gave the cheese its particular creamy texture.
He handed me the bread. I hesitated, imagining a scenario in which one of the surely still-alive worms somehow survived my stomach acid long enough to reproduce and I burped flies for the rest of my honeymoon.
But it was too late to refuse. I took a bite. The odor made my eyes water, and immediately, I was hit in the back of the throat by a sharp burning sensation. I wanted to cough. The cheese was creamy, and I didn’t feel the texture of the worms inside my mouth, but the cheese was so rotten that the only way I could describe it was spicy.
Antonio handed me a local beer which is apparently what you need to wash down worms. It was refreshing, so I took a second bite of cheese for posterity. Seemingly as a reward for my effort, Antonio pulled out a small jar of Nutella and served me another bread, this time with a much more familiar and comforting taste.
Mohamed, meanwhile, seemed to actually be enjoying the worm cheese. He finished his bread and eagerly went for a second one, exalting the crawling cheese to be a delicious discovery.
Once our picnic was finished, we headed back to the port and boarded Antonio’s motorboat complete with a kitchen and dining room table. He took us out to a cove, and let me drive the boat on the way there. The waves consistently pulled the vessel in one direction, so I learned that unlike driving a car, I had to constantly turn the wheel to correct course.
We swam in the chilly green water of the cove for a while until I saw a jellyfish and then dried off and sat wrapped in our sweatshirts while Antonio went fishing for squid which live on the seafloor and were not biting that day.
It was getting cold and choppy on the water as the afternoon turned to evening so we headed back to the port. On the way, Antonio saw a friend and decided he wasn’t ready to give up on catching a squid that day. He dropped us off before heading back out and we waved goodbye, thanking him for a day full of good memories, among them, casu martzu.
If you go to Sardinia, don’t miss Asanara National Park. Unlike the rest of Sardinia, it’s not a great place to hike and chill on the beach. It’s a bit disconcerting to think that it was home to hundreds of maximum security prisoners until it was left to be retaken by nature in 1997. There are dozens of overgrown ruins, two abandoned towns, an ossuary housing the bones of hundreds of prisoners who died from illness, a more modern prison converted into a museum, and plenty of donkeys, wild goats, and horses all around.
Thanks Anna, Isn't this amazing. Uncle Bill had a friend visit yesterday who was stationed with his family in Sardinia while in the military. He has no recollection of the rotten cheese.
Enjoy every post that you write.