The Italian Riviera’s most famous sauce: Pesto “alla Genovese”

The Food in Liguria is wonderful, as are the wines. The first Pasta with Pesto recipe goes all the way back to the 1800s. This delicious sauce derives its name “Pesto” (translates from Italian as “crush”) from the fact that all the ingredients were originally ground by hand using a mortar and a pestle; these days most people find it more expedient to make the sauce with an electric blender, although purists consider the modern method sacrilege.  The recipe is pretty simple: the ingredients – basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and a bit of salt – are all put everything into a blender on high for 2 or 3 minutes. The blender is pulsed to mix the ingredients well and  add a little hot water, taken from the pot where the “trenette” or “linguine” are boiling, is added to hasten the mixing. When the sauce reaches the consistency of thick puree, it’s ready to be put directly over pasta without heating.  Of course, the Genoese say that not just any basil basil can be used and that only basil grown near the Mediterranea  Sea  produces the unique flavor of the real Pesto “alla Genovese”.

This fragrant herb that originated from Asia and Tropical Africa, was actually well-known in Liguria and in the rest of Italy as a common ingredient for salads and seasoning tomato sauces and other dishes, quiete likely since the 17th c. In contrast, basil was virtually unknown in the United States until the late 1900s. A legend connects basil with scorpions, possibly because the creatures can often be found sheltered under the plant; in other lore, a tale says that the use of basil as the main ingredient for pesto sauce is due to the inspiration of a monk living in the S.Basilio convent situated in the hills near Genova: the convent’s patron saint is said to have compelled the monk to call this precious herb “basilico” (baixacò in genoese dialect) and to create the sauce that’s loved the world over today.