Bigoli with Salted Sardines - - Bigoli co le Sardele Salae

Set pasta water to boil; when it boils, salt it lightly (the sardines are salty) and cook the pasta. While doing this, prepare the sauce, timing things so the sauce is ready when the pasta is done:

Remove the heads from the sardines, bone them, and rinse them in water and vinegar. Sauté the onion in the olive oil, and when it has become golden add the sardines. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes, stir in the diluted tomato sauce, and continue to cook until the water has evaporated. At this point the sauce is ready; pour it over the pasta and serve.

Variations:

• Scale, bone, and rinse the sardines. Cut the filets into small pieces and marinate them for a half hour in olive oil. Sauté them for 2-3 minutes in the oil, season them with salt and pepper, and use them to season the pasta (no tomato in this case).
• Scale, rinse and bone 1 1/2 sardines per person and set them to cook in a pot with just a little water. When the water has evaporated, add olive oil and a minced clove of garlic, and turn off the heat. In the meantime, brown a heaping tablespoon of breadcrumbs per person in a little unsalted butter or olive oil (enough to coat the crumbs). Combine the breadcrumbs with the sardines, and use the mixture to season your bigoli.
• Cook the bigoli in water laced with wild fennel fronds or a teaspoon of fennel seeds, and serve them with a sauce similar to the primary sauce above, substituting 2 tablespoons of pine nuts and a quarter cup of raisins that have been plumped for a half hour in warm water for the dilute tomato sauce. Serve with a dusting of shredded almonds.

My Response to Giuseppino:
It's true, Dalmatia is now in Croatia. However, in the past Dalmatia was ethnically Italian, because Venice governed the coastal areas of much of the Northern Adriatic directly for centuries before becoming an Austro-Hungarian province, and the Veneti who settled Dalmatia under Venetian rule stayed on after it ended. They'd probably still be there were it not for Tito's very effective Ethnic Cleansing at the end of World War II.
Kyle Phillips, Your Guide to Italian Food