After a bloodcurdling dinner in the hills of Sardinia, our adventurous eater tracks down a restaurant serving something even more squirmy
Sebastiano brought out the cauldron. He did not speak English but even if he could, he wasn't going to tell us what we were about to eat. It was a surprise. He was excited. My girlfriend and I were sharing a table with an Italian couple and their two young boys – the family came to Sebastiano's farm in the mountains of Sardinia every year for their holidays. They knew what was in the cauldron. The boys wriggled with anticipation.
The mother asked Sebastiano something and pointed at the cauldron. We listened to his mellifluous Italian. He fulfilled a certain stereotype: stirring the air, making a crumbling action with his fingertips, then drawing his hand down his own chest as though unzipping a jacket. The family cooed. We understood next to nothing but there was one word that stuck out: coaguli.
We thought of ourselves as brave eaters. Back home in London, we'd welcomed nose-to-tail eating – finally something in British cooking to be proud of – and had been indulging in the zeitgeist: baking veal bone marrow, frying brains, roasting tongues.
There was no denying that part of the appeal was machismo. Who could boil a pig's head? Who could endure the intestinal stench of andouillette?
Google weird or frightening foods, and you are sure to find on the list one of Sardinia's famous delicacies, casu marzu, or maggot cheese. It's a kind of pecorino into which fly larvae have been introduced. The cheese moves beyond fermentation into decomposition. The digestive action of the larvae breaks down the fats, leaving a very soft texture, liquid in parts. Wikipedia notes that the worms can jump up to 15cm in the air and advises eye protection.
When we arrived in Sardinia, we couldn't see it on any menus. We wondered if it was one of those things – like jellied eels in London – that gets name-dropped a lot but few people actually eat. It wasn't until we met Sebastiano that we felt sure we had a man who would know.
Although his agriturismo, Testone, near Nuro, in the mountainous centre of the island, is in an isolated cork forest, people travel there for his cooking. Even the local cinghiale– wild boar – came snuffling to his back door to be fed. On our first night, he made us unforgettable homemade ravioli and lung ragù. On our second night, he brought out the cauldron.
If it was full of maggot cheese, we thought, we had perhaps overstated our culinary fearlessness. He dunked his ladle and poured a bowl of dark lumpy soup the colour and texture of raspberry jam. No visible larvae. It smelled rich, and we were told to spread a little on the flat carasau bread they eat everywhere in Sardinia. We were also advised to go slow, a recommendation the two small boys cheerfully ignored. They soon had ruby-coloured stains around their mouths like badly applied lipstick. Gore dripping down their chins, they resembled young vampires. Sebastiano watched our reactions, smiling, his teeth stained red. Could we guess the secret ingredient?
Well, it looked like blood, smelled like blood – was it blood?
Sebastiano would neither confirm nor deny. But since we had loved everything he had cooked up to that point, we got started, trying not to think of the lumps as clots. I took a bite, waited for fangs to replace my incisors but instead, there was the richness of, yes, blood but also onion (the lumps) and all shot through with mint. It was silky and heartening and it raised the pulse.
As we ate, Sebastiano explained – with extra sign language from the Italian family – that it was called sanguinaccio. As well as the ingredients we'd detected, he'd crumbled in homemade pecorino and thickened it with bread. Animal noises established that he had slaughtered a lamb that morning. This was the meal he always made when he had fresh lamb's blood.
It's not legal to buy blood over the counter in Britain because it needs to be eaten within 24 hours. Even in Italy, a 1992 law banned the sale of blood in some regions, which is why many people get it from their own animals.
By the end of the meal, our napkins looked like props for a horror movie. Sebastiano was delighted. There was a sense that the bond you make while sharing blood soup is a bond that lasts. As the evening went on, we gathered from the Italian family that we had seen nothing compared with the food Sebastiano served for parties. Judging by their facial expressions and hand gestures, these meals were a mix between a medieval victory banquet and that scene in The Shining, where the blood pours out of the elevator.
This all made a lasting impression. I was writing my second novel, Wild Abandon, at the time, and ended up using blood soup (disguised as tomato) as a vital motor for the plot. My girlfriend, meanwhile, was determined to track down the maggot cheese.
We asked around but had no luck. Locals knew about it, but restaurants didn't serve it. We flew home and I might have given up had it not been for my girlfriend's single-mindedness, which led us to Mediterranea a low-key but well-loved Sardinian restaurant in Crystal Palace, south London. "It's not on the menu," the owner said on the phone. He paused. "But if you want I could bring some from my fridge at home?"
At the restaurant, they gave us a special table, out of the sight-line of other customers. Our first and second courses were delicious, but could not distract us from giggly anticipation of our secret, final course.
The owner emerged from the kitchen, furtively carrying a shoebox-sized plastic box close to his chest. He put it down on the table and asked us to try to be subtle. When he removed the lid, I suppose I was expecting more horror. But it was not like peering into the industrial bins behind our flat. In fact, it looked fairly normal. It was pale, crumbly, almost like cottage cheese, with a strong smell. The owner picked up my fork and dug into one of the larger cheese clouds, which disintegrated at his prodding. His eyebrows spoke of revelation. "You're lucky," he said. "They're active."
We peered more closely and saw the maggots were not the fat squirmers you see in films. They were, in essence, made entirely of cheese. No wonder they were so well-camouflaged. They looked like tiny pale strings and they were leaping – for freedom or for joy, who could say?
He gave us each a portion and we were advised, again: go slow. He told us that his children loved this cheese, particularly the pleasure of chasing the maggots across the table before sending them to their doom.
There was no question, by the way, of not eating the maggots. They were the cheese and the cheese was them, plus they were too small to really pick around. Occasionally, we had to herd one or two back to our plates if they made a rush for the border. The cheese tasted like an extremely strong, very fine blue, but its greatest attribute was its texture: melting and crumbling and gooey.
The owner seemed pleased with our response as he carefully resealed the box and took the maggots home.
There's a popular parenting book called French Children Don't Throw Food. If my girlfriend and I ever have kids, we'll have higher expectations than that. Perhaps one day there will be another parenting manual: Italian Children Taunt Maggots and Drink Blood.
• A half-board stay at Sebastiano Secchi's farm (+39 0784 230539, agriturismotestone.com) costs from €55pp. Olbia and Alghero airports are about two hours' drive away
This is an edited extract from A Fork in The Road (out next week from Lonely Planet, £8.99,) a collection of culinary tales from leading names in the world of food, edited by James Oseland. To buy a copy for £7.19 with free UK p&p call 0330 333 6846, or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk.