Pane Carasau

Bread was and is the staple of Sardinian diet. Barley and wheat are the main ingredients. In the island there are dozens of bread types, linked to specific regions or to festivities and rituals. Bread was considered holy, gifted to people during marriages, for Christmas and Easter, distributed to close people when a family member to honor deceased family members.

Among sardinian types of bread, there is a family of leavened flatbreads, consumed after either one or two bakings. They are mostly widespread in the northwest and the central part of the island. (write why did they develop). They are a bit of a unicum in Europe and the western mediterranean, the closest relatives coming from Anatolia and Kurdistan.

Among these crunchy flatbreads, the most famous is pane carasáu – or pane ‘e fresa, pistoccu, depending on the village – never carta da musica, a snobby name that italians scared by sardinian language use.

Today, this can be found all over the island, having become a simble of the sardinian cuisine, but it was traditionally made in the central region, in a triangle that goes from…

In the villages most would bake their own bread, but there were families who would bake and sell large quantities. Often, today’s modern businesses are still kept in such families.
Bread preparation was typically a women’s business, and often still is, in the more informal businesses. They would gather and prepare the mass, adding water and salt to the flour. This was kneated and then left to rise. Small portions were spread extremely thin on wooden surfaces, often while sitting on the ground. The bread was then baked until it would inflate into a balloon of very thin walls. The bread was taken out of the oven, cut in halves and these were placed in piles, each sheet separated from the next by a fold in a long linen canvas.

The bread obtained after this first baking is called lentu, soft. It is then baked a second time, which dries the bread, it makes it crunchy and able to be stored for long times. Carasare means to bake twice, hence the bread thus obtained is carasáu. If stored properly, can be kept for months and stay crunchy and with a fresh taste.

Because of the preparation process, when one speaks of one bread, one refers to two sheets, while a sheet (una piza) or a half (una perra) is used to indicate a single sheet.

Various parts of the preparation are today mechanized, most commonly, the mixing of the flour and its thinning are automated or at least mechanized. While often the baking and the splitting of the breads after the first baking are still carried out manually, in wooden ovens or also electric ones. Larger producers have ovens with a conveyor belt, were the bread enters on one side, is baked, and then split manually. The same conveyor belt leads it to a second oven or makes it pass in the first one again for the second baking.

Today pane carasáu is made mostly in little enterprises, for local consumption. But is also exported or sold to tourists. In many families is still today the main bread consumed daily.

There is also gluten free versions.

Pane carasau is a versatile food. it can be eaten crunchy or quickly wetted under the sink and left a few minutes to soften, so it can be used also to whipe a plate clean of a sauce. Crumbs and smaller pieces can be added to soups or to a bowl of milk, and scooped out with a spoon, covered in oil and salt and baked a third time, it becomes a very savory snack (pane guttiau). Stapling layers (not more than 3-4) covered in tomato sauce, grated cheese, olive oil, and maybe topped with a poached egg, it can be consumed as pane frattau.
Rolls of pane carasau softened in water, can be rolled with some grated cheese and olive oil or other ingredients. They can also be baked again, with their filling, to create new recipes.