Wheat pasta parcels filled with potato, aged pecorino and mint, closed with a hand-pleated seam that looks like an ear of wheat. Served simply, in tomato sauce or with butter, so the seam and the filling do the work.
Culurgiones come from Ogliastra, on the eastern side of Sardinia, and have travelled to every table on the island including Cagliari's. The filling is a shepherd's economy: boiled potato, grated aged pecorino, olive oil or lard, and mint, which is what lifts the whole thing. The closure is the point of pride. The pleat, called spighitta after the wheat ear it resembles, is made by folding the dough over itself from side to side with the thumb and finger, and a badly stitched culurgione is a fair reason for criticism in Sardinia. The shape carries an older meaning as an offering, and in Ogliastra the parcels are still associated with the feasts of the dead in early November.
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