This new pasta delivery service might help you live to 100
“Blue Zones” are those parts of the world where the people have unusually long life expectancy. There’s the Greek island of Ikaria, which has the lowest middle age mortality in the world; Japan’s Okinawa tropical island, which boasts the world’s longest lived women; California’s Loma Linda, where Seventh Day Adventists rely on a biblical diet of vegetables, nuts and grains; and Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, which has the second largest concentration of male centenarians.
Sardinia is another Blue Zone, with a statistically aberrant number of people living to three digits, and thanks to a new London-based food delivery business, you can now get in on some of that sweet, sweet longevity.
Inspired by the research of Dan Buettner and the National Geographic Society published in 2017 as well as the diet of their birthplace, brother and sister Marco and Jennifer Cauli deliver Blue Zone-inspired dishes through their company Semolina Pastificio.
These include Sardinian gnocchi or “malloreddus” made with semolina flour and saffron and served with a traditional Campidanese ragu, or “angelottos” – a large ravioli from Oliena filled with chard, ricotta and aged pecorino.
Jennifer, who is a food photographer and writer, spent a year researching a book on the plant protein based diet and recipes of the people of the Sardinian Blue Zone. “I had the privilege of spending time in some of the communities in the Ogliastra and Barbagia regions,” she says. “I discovered the plant protein, low sugar-based diets of the oldest people on earth as well as traditional recipes forgotten even by Sardinians.”
An architecture graduate from Florence University, Jennifer has worked at the Barbican Centre and British Museum. Marco started working at their uncle’s restaurant in Sardinia and has worked as a “pizzaiolo” – pizza chef – in Australia as well as at London’s Science Museum restaurant.
“We come from a tiny village, Muravera, on the south-east coast of Sardinia,” says Jennifer. “Our mother was a pasta chef in a pastificio. It is the classic story of her passing on her passion to her children. This is the food of our youth. We are not trying to invent anything but perfecting proven traditional recipes that possibly contributed to the longevity of the people from Sardinia’s Blue Zone.
“Unlike the pasta from Northern Italy which mainly uses eggs and wheat, Sardinian pasta is often made from just semolina flour and water. We make our pasta by hand with no electric machines. We aim to expand our menu to other Sardinian classics such as fregola (bead shaped semolina pasta), sebadas (fried ravioli), pratzira (focaccia with tomato, basil and lots of garlic), coccoi (potato and cheese tarts) and pardulas (small cheesecakes).
“Culurgiones from Ogliastra is our signature dish. It is pleated ravioli filled with pureed potato, pecorino, mint, and garlic. There are now only a handful of people who can still make them in the traditional way”.
It’s not just the pasta that’s healthy – Sardinian Cannonau (grenache) wine has two or three times more artery-sluicing flavonoids as other wines. Moderate wine consumption as well as regular, low- intensity exercise may help explain the lower levels of stress among Sardinian men. “If you’re on the hunt for the healthiest red wine, this is it,” says Buettner in his book The Blue Zone Kitchen. “Small doses of this antioxidant-rich beverage throughout the day could explain fewer heart attacks and lower levels of stress among men in this region of the world.
“Another reason Sardinians may experience these health benefits is the way they consume the wine — always surrounded by good friends and good food.”
Semolina Pastificio uses stone-ground semolina flour imported from Italy and cheese supplied by specialist Italian cheese retailer Drunk Cheese from Borough Market.
All orders are delivered on Friday – for more information visit the website here.