Pasta Worthy of a Pilgrimage
In the mountains of Northern Sardinia, a 300-year-old pilgrimage comes with a serving of the world’s rarest pasta.
By Matt Goulding
The name tells you all you need to know about the significance of Sardinia’s most elusive pasta: su filindeu, the threads of God. Of the more than 350 officially recognized shapes of pasta in Italy, this is considered the rarest.
Paola Abraini is one of only a handful of people who still know how to make su filindeu. “To lose this tradition would be like losing a piece of our identity,” she said.
Stretched by hand, a single ball of dough is converted into 256 gossamer strands that are stretched across a drying rack called a fundo in a triangular pattern, to evoke the Holy Trinity. It’s a meticulous process that has proven difficult to pass down to younger generations. Every detail of su filindeu matters, including its relationship with its Mediterranean environs. “When it is dried in the sun it becomes light and golden,” said Mrs. Abraini. Twenty years ago, Mrs. Abraini was among the last custodians of the vanishing foodway. But her tireless work as a teacher has helped bring it back from the brink of extinction.
For most of its centuries-long history, su filindeu was a tradition passed down through a single line of matriarchs from Nuoro, a town in the mountainous interior of the island. In fact, Ms. Abraini came to learn the intricate craft from her mother-in-law at 16.
Whereas most handmade pasta in Italy is rolled out with a wooden dowel called a mattarello, every pass of su filindeu dough halves the width and doubles the number of strands. Do that eight times and you end up with the requisite 256 threads. Such finesse requires a not-so-secret ingredient: salt, which tightens the network of gluten in the flour, giving the dough the elasticity required to stretch so thin.
For the whole article:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/05/19/dining/sardinia-rare-pasta-food-travel.html