Costedda: The Sardinian Focaccia Made Without Water
Italian cookbooks agree on one thing: focaccia barese dough is mixed with water and the tomatoes only go on top. Bakers in the village of Villasimius, on the southeastern coast of Sardinia, read that rule backwards - here it's the flour that goes into the tomatoes. A kilo of ripe tomatoes, crushed to a pulp, goes into the bowl, then salt, yeast, olive oil, garlic and basil; no water, the juice does its work.
Costedda (in Sardinian sa costedda) is a tall focaccia from the southeastern tip of Sardinia in which the juice of crushed tomatoes stands in for water; the second traditional version is baked with stewed onion. It is a specialty of Sardinian cooking - outside this corner of the island you will hardly find it.
What Sa Costedda Means and Who Claims It
The name is Campidanese, from the southern branch of Sardinian: sa costedda cun tamata is the tomato version, sa costedda cun cipudda the onion one. Italian food sites all add that costedda means rib, supposedly after the long shape of the flatbread. That unanimity is suspicious, though: not one of them cites a single dictionary, and the explanation travels from blog to blog the same way the recipe does. Either way, costedda belongs to Sarrabus, the southeastern corner of the island - and there is a quiet neighborly tug-of-war over it: the tourist site for Villasimius presents it as its own specialty, the site for neighboring Costa Rei as its own, and neither one mentions the other. The rest of Italy stays out of the argument. Its closest relative, the Apulian focaccia barese, puts its tomatoes on top - it never lets them into the dough.
Where a Focaccia Without Water Came From
Costedda has no documented history, only two stories that cannot be reconciled. In the first, the recipe was spread at the beginning of the twentieth century by the women of Villasimius; in the second it is an old dish of shepherds and farmers from across the southeast, who took the flatbread out to the fields for days at a time because it kept so well. Neither version is backed by a single document. And costedda fits Sardinia exactly: this is an island of breads, where alongside the ubiquitous pane carasau live loaves that just one village bakes - Bonorva bakes su zichi, Montresta bistoccu, Genuri sa moddixia. A flatbread known to just two seaside resorts surprises nobody here.
What Goes Into It and How It Is Eaten
The tomato version stands or falls on overripe summer tomatoes: their pulp brings moisture, color and flavor all at once. The grated-potato pancakes we fry back home work on the same principle - no water, the ingredient gives up its own liquid. The onion version laughs at that lesson: the recipes mix it the classic way, with water, and it needs even more of it than the tomato one, so the line about a focaccia without water only covers half of what is on the counter. What they share is the result - a flatbread with a crisp surface and a moist, dense inside. Don't expect the big bubbles you get on a pizza, the heavy tomato pulp will not let the gluten have them.
In bakeries costedda is sold by weight, cut from large sheets, and it is eaten warm or cold: as a snack, a starter, or simply instead of bread with cured meats and aged cheeses. It is not tied to any feast day or season - it is baked all year round.
Two Slices from the Frau Bakery
I bought my costedda in Villasimius, a village of barely four thousand that in summer turns into one of the busiest resorts in southern Sardinia - at the Frau bakery, where I also came across a cornetto with pistachio cream. I took a slice of each version. The tomato one smelled wonderful and must have had an enormous amount of tomatoes in it; the onion one, though, was the runaway winner: a very short dough that practically fell apart, and sweet onion caramelized on top. Neither one was the least bit greasy. A kilo cost 15 EUR, my portion came to about 3.50 EUR. Whether costedda belongs to Villasimius or to Costa Rei, I can't settle over a single meal. But if I lived there, I would happily have it for breakfast all week.
