Since ancient times, bread has been the basic food of the Sardinian diet, as well as of many other Mediterranean peoples. However, in Sardinia, the domestic baking cycle shows characteristics of typological varieties and traits of persistence that are completely peculiar, which find few terms of comparison (for example in Sicily).

The variety of types can already be seen when choosing the cereal and, consequently, the flour with which to compose the dough: mainly durum wheat flour. With regard to durum wheat flours, they range from those with a higher percentage of bran to those that are gradually more purified (in the past the prerogative of the wealthiest classes, or reserved for festive occasions). Furthermore, as variable elements, any additional ingredients, which constitute a sort of “condiment”: potatoes, tomatoes, other garden products, ricotta, fats (vegetable and animal), olives, crackles of lard, etc. Or, again, sapa, honey, raisins and dried fruit; these ingredients involve the encroachment of bread into the dessert.
In an economic horizon with limited assets, such as the traditional Sardinian one, of sieving operations, nothing was thrown away. In fact, almost whole bran and other non-breadable residues for humans integrated the feed of farmyard animals, or a loaf intended for dogs was made from it, after kneading and cooking

The following types of breads have fallen out of use around the 1950s: barley bread, corn bread and, limited to an area limited to some towns in Ogliastra, acorn breads.
Barley bread was produced in areas characterized by land with a strong stone component (Fonni, Oliena, etc.), where this cereal grew more easily than wheat.
The baking process was even longer and more laborious than that required for wheat: from decortication (which involves removing the outer glumes of the caroxide, which are particularly fibrous and difficult to remove) to sieving, to the dough made more tiring by the lower amount of gluten contained, to the long and complex preparation of a specific leavening agent.
From this complexity of the operations to which the cereal was subjected, so that it could be baked from it, derived the Nuoro curse “Ancu ti facan su 'e s' òrju” ('that they subject you to the 'martyrdom' of barley ').
What made barley bread less popular than wheat bread was, in addition to the dark color, above all the bitter taste given by the difficult peeling that made perfect sieving impossible with the persistence of elements that affected the flavor of the finished product. The absolute preference given to wheat bread in the past is evidenced by the phrase “Going chircande pane menzus de su de trìdicu” (lit.: 'Looking for better bread than wheat bread'; in a broad sense 'looking for something better than what is superior to any alternative'). Wheat bread was appreciated as a sort of status symbol ('sign of social distinction') of the higher classes.
Barley bread — except in cases where it was completely replaced by wheat bread following natural disasters or war conflicts — was instead intended for servants, as documented by the Deleddian autobiographical

[...] the shelf on which, in addition to the pots, there was a wooden container always full of grated cheese, and an asphodel basket with barley bread and the companion for the servants.

The baking cycle, both in the preliminary phases (washing, sorting of the cereal and sieving) and in the process of making the finished product (preparation of the yeast, processing of the dough, modeling and decoration of the breads, cooking, plus possible polishing of the surface) was an almost exclusively feminine prerogative. Men could, in limited cases, offer support in operations that required a significant expenditure of energy and physical strength, such as the treatment of dough. In any case, all the operations related to baking were coordinated with each other and, although in a different way, they rhythmed the times of domestic life, occupying the spaces of the house or courtyard.
Within the working group of women engaged in baking, there were significant differences. The main ones were those of a socio-economic nature, since in wealthy homes the landlady was usually assisted by maids, bakers and bakers for a fee. In any case, the exchange of help between neighbors, wives and relatives was very frequent. Beyond the social and economic conditions and the size of the family unit, all the women in the family made their own contribution.

learning was concerned, the girls were assigned a small portion of dough, so that they could observe and imitate, initially for fun, the gestures of adults, storing the operations learned in their body memory. Therefore, the practices, gestures and skills related to baking constituted a set of 'implicit knowledge', not transmitted through a verbal explanation but exemplified in practice, to be observed and repeated through the process of 'trial and error' ('trial and

The fact that tradition shows persistence in Sardinia, especially in the most conservative centers, does not mean that it has remained anachronistically completely immune to the dynamics of change linked to technological development (abandonment of the asinaria wheel, use of kneading and sheeting machines, etc.). The decoration work (painting/frying on bread) remains a purely manual operation, facilitated by tools used even in the past: cutter wheels, scissors, awls, tweezers, bread marks, etc

Today the number of families who make bread at home is very small but perhaps, overall, higher than expected. Alongside countries and family groups that have preserved the tradition of baking in the domestic environment, we have recently witnessed a rediscovery, motivated by identity and health needs, of food products made according to tradition, without prejudice to the technological differences mentioned above

It should also be noted a reversal of the trend compared to the meanings related to social belonging that prevailed in the past. Currently, whole wheat bread (“black” bread) or even barley bread, which more than one producer is interested in returning to the market, are now considered valuable because they are considered to be more beneficial in terms of health than “white” wheat bread. So today it is no longer considered crazy to chircare pane menzus de su de trìdicu ('to look for better bread