PLAYDASH Media
May 20, 2026
Before It Disappears
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. An older woman wearing glasses and an embroidered apron pulls and stretches pasta dough into numerous thin strands.
The same woman rolls out a log of dough.
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Videos by Sam Youkilis Text by Matt Goulding May 19, 2026
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.
The woman pulls and stretches the dough from one loop into more than 200 strands.
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.
The woman lays out the thin strands across a circular frame, which is covered in with strands of noodles.
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.
She holds up the circular board covered in a grid pattern with the pasta strands.
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.
The woman flips through a photo album, showing photographs of a younger woman preparing the same steps of dough-stretching.
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.
It’s not a recipe that can be read and recreated by enterprising cooks in kitchens abroad; the technique must be felt in the flesh, learned through repetition and error until the fingertips know the difference between just right and just wrong. To master it requires mastering many variables, including the effect of hard water versus soft water, when to add the salt solution, how to adjust to the weather. This level of dedication has made younger generations of local women reluctant to take up the practice.
Many have come to Nuoro to learn but few have succeeded at the intricate craftwork. Even the pasta barons of Barilla, the world’s largest pasta company, couldn’t crack the code for these noodles.
A rockface rises in the distance, reflected pink with morning light as foliage sways in the foreground. Su filindeu is closely bound to its home in the north of Sardinia, a sparsely populated tableau of verdant flora and sheer stone, hearty food and strong beliefs.
Fabric hanging from buildings on a narrow street sways in the breeze. Two birds fly into view in the distance.
Much of the island’s history and culture have been defined by isolation, nowhere more so than Nuoro, which Grazia Deledda, the 1926 Nobel Prize-winning writer who grew up there, called “the most cultured and combative town on the island.”
People are gathered inside a church. A priest wearing a white robe walks down the aisle, shaking holy water into the air.
At the heart of that culture is a biannual Catholic pilgrimage, which begins in the church of Rosario di Nuoro in May and October.
An older woman with short hair, glasses and a smile holds two children in heavy jackets close to her.
Some of the town’s oldest, and youngest, citizens make the trek.
A large crowd of people, many wearing backpacks, walk down a street lined with trees. The sky is dark, with light coming from several streetlamps.
At midnight on May 1, hundreds of pilgrims set out from Nuoro. Together they traverse over 20 miles of mountainous terrain to the church of San Francesco di Lula.
The crowd of people walks toward the camera down a narrow, darkened street.
Some travel in groups of family and friends, telling stories and trading gossip deep into the night. Others prefer a solitary journey of reflection through the darkness.
Orange light peeks out from behind a mountain as the sun rises, a small forest in the foreground.
The first groups of pilgrims arrive at San Francesco di Lula shrine just as the sun rises above the limestone crest of the Monte Albo massif — a spiritual journey now illuminated.
A man, barefoot, carries a religious banner. He walks at the front of a group of people. In the background are trees and, in the far distance, mountains.
Paolo Ladu makes the pilgrimage twice a year, barefoot. “I owe it to Saint Francis,” he said. “He saved my mother. I was 13 years old, and since then, over half a century has passed. I haven’t stopped coming.”
A white statue of a man with a bird in his hand, a second bird sitting on his shoulder. Roses and other flowers are arranged at his feet. Three people come up to the statue and make the sign of the cross on their chests.
Local lore has it that a bandit back in the 17th century was falsely accused of murder. After being exonerated, he built a church outside the village of Lula and dedicated it to Saint Francis of Assisi, defender of the poor and steward of nature.
A woman wearing a blue windbreaker and a backpack looks up, then wipes tears from her eyes.
The overnight journey evokes a wide range of emotions in Sardinia’s pilgrims — joy, hope, solemnity and catharsis.
A person’s feet resting in a footbath as a fireplace flickers in the background. Water from a metal pitcher is poured into the bowl.
The pilgrims endure the journey and the community responds with restorative hospitality: water and coffee, a footbath, and eventually, a bowl of pasta.
An older man wearing glasses, a jacket and a yellow scarf, holds up a long brochure with stamps of various kinds across it.
Francesco Calledda, 89, completed his 87th pilgrimage in May, though he begins his journey in Cagliari, 125 miles away. “I don’t plan to stop anytime soon,” he said.
Ask five pilgrims why they make the journey, and you’ll get varied answers: For faith. For pride. For a loved one. For exercise. And, of course, for pasta.
One thing that most pilgrims agree on: this is as good as su filindeu gets. For centuries, it was served exclusively at San Francesco di Lula. But recently a few restaurants in Sardinia started to serve the pasta outside of the pilgrimage.
Context is everything, though. Eaten any other time, the dish doesn’t taste the way it does after an overnight mountain hike. It’s the effort that matters — both in the making of the pasta and the pilgrimage to eat it.
A man in a blue shirt, apron and glasses stirs a large vat of broth with onions and meat boiling away. A second man, also in an apron, stands behind him, skimming another pot of broth. Sheep, many of which live in those same mountains, outnumber humans two to one on Sardinia. They play a central role in island culture and cuisine — including as the base for the su filindeu broth.
Two women make the sign of the cross before one of them does the same with dried sheets of pasta before placing them into a boiling pot of broth.
It takes a village to make the dish, but the division of kitchen labor at San Francesco di Lula is clear: men make the broth, and women cook (and bless) the pasta.
Cubes of cheese are stirred into the pot of pasta and broth.
Soft cubes of sheep’s milk cheese are stirred into the broth just before serving. The final creation is more delicate than the sheep-on-sheep treatment would suggest — aromatic, gentle, almost sweet.
A woman ladles out servings of pasta and broth and hands one bowl to a man in an orange jacket.
For three centuries, the pasta and the pilgrimage have been inexorably connected.
A long table with various bowls and drinks, surrounded by a group of pilgrims. Some people are reaching for coffee, others are chatting with each other.
The power of the pilgrimage is found in the balance between solitude and community, sacrifice and hospitality, pain and pleasure.
A boy with dark hair and a gray sweatshirt eats a bowl of pasta and broth.
Seated at the long communal tables, some of the pilgrims have consumed dozens of bowls of su filindeu over the course of decades. Others are just beginning their journey.
A full yellow moon in an orange-pink sky over darkened mountains.
Correction: May 19, 2026
An earlier version of this article misstated the town where the church of San Francesco is located. It is in Lula, not Alghero. It also misstated the surname of a pilgrim. He is Paolo Ladu, not Lado.
