According to legend, a man from the town of Nuoro on the Italian island of Sardinia was wrongly accused of a murder. Rather than being imprisoned, he fled into the caves of the surrounding hills. When his innocence was proven, he built a church as a sign of his gratitude.
Since then, twice per year – on May 1 and October 4 – locals from this central region of Sardinia embark on an overnight pilgrimage from Nuoro to the church outside Lula, walking almost 20 miles by the light of the moon. When they arrive at the chapel, they attend a brief church service and then indulge in the world’s rarest pasta: “su filindeu,” meaning “the threads of God.”
In addition to the pilgrimage itself, I was interested to learn about the su filindeu pasta. It’s made by pulling stands of pasta as thin as string and then stretching them over a large wooden frame. Then, another batch is made and stretched perpendicular to the first batch so that the pasta appears to be woven. It’s then cut into squares and served with a lamb broth and plenty of local pecorino cheese.
There are only a small handful of women in Sardinia that know how to make the pasta, so it’s only served twice per year after this pilgrimage, prompting some to claim that it’s the rarest pasta in the world.
