Green, Greener, Pesto
I spent this past week on the Italian Riviera, with my home base in Genoa. The Italian Riviera has an undeniably strong character. The Ligurian people are strong characters. You can hear and see them talking from a mile away. Shaped by the sea, they have a thundering passion for life itself. The Ligurian cuisine is as the people are strong. Fine ingredients turn into fiery mouth explosions. Exemplary of this fiery mouth explosion was a Gnocchi di Cozze I had at Ittiturismo GE8317 in Bocadesse. An innocent gnocchi that went ballistic in your mouth. A tomato fish sauce together with the Gnocchi combined for one of the highlights of our week.
Pesto
Another highlight of our week and in general a highlight of the Ligurian coast is the pesto. The ingredients are few in a traditional pesto Genovese. But they need to be as specific as they are fresh:
Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Sardo cheeses, Tuscan pine nuts, garlic from nearby Vessalico, salt, and extra-virgin oil from the region’s Taggiasca olives. And, of course, bright green Genovese basil.
Every restaurant has a different take on its pesto. Some are served with potatoes, green beans, and tagliatelle like in Trattoria Ugo
Or this local version in the harbor of Portofino where the pesto is made with tomato
And lastly, the classic one and definitely the best one we had. Thank you, Il Genovese, for the amazing creation.
The word on Pesto
Does it ever become monotonous, all this pesto? “I think about pesto-like chess,” says Panizza. “You have a limited framework, but within those limits, you have many possibilities. Every week, the basil changes, the cheese changes. But it’s also the same.” As he explains it, pesto is always a reflection of the present moment. It’s impossible to reproduce the same pesto on another day. It also depends on where you’re making it and eating it, who you’re eating it with, how you feel at that particular moment. “It depends on the stato d’animo,” he says. In other words, pesto is a state of mind." Roberto Panizza
Roberto Panizza is the owner of “Pesto Rossi 1947” and “Il Genovese”, as well as the President of the Palatifini Cultural Association that created the:
World Championship for Genoese Pesto Made with a Mortar
It takes place every two years and in the last edition, in 2018, it saw 100 competitors in Genoa (50 from Liguria, 25 from the rest of Italy, and 25 from abroad) and 30 Italian and foreign judges, including journalists, food experts, restaurateurs, and tasters.
It will take place on September 26th. While the day of September 28th will be full of events and initiatives starting from the “Pesto Party” at Palazzo Ducale: the event will celebrate the product symbol of Genoa and Liguria through music, films, cooking courses for young and old, and other events.
The History
We go back to the Middle Ages where the local wealthy Ligurian population is used to enrich its meals with spices. While the peasantry used aromatic herbs to make their soups more tasteful. A practice that still happens today with adding pesto to the soup. It is to believe the passion for herbs gave birth to pesto. One of its first official appearances was when in the 18th century when Giovanni Battista Ratto wrote the pesto recipe in his book "La Cuciniera Genovese".
He writes
"Take a clove of garlic, basil (baxaicö) or if not of this marjoram and parsley, Dutch cheese and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese grated and mixed together, the pignoli and pounded all in a marble mortar with a little butter until it is reduced to fresh pesto sauce. Dissolve it then with fine extra virgin olive oil in abundance. With this pesto sauce, the lasagna and the gnocchi (troffie) are seasoned, adding a little warm water without salt to make it more liquid”
The differences with the cheese have to do with the maritime activity at that time. Marjoram or parsley was often used as basil is a seasonal product that grows only in summer.
Giovanni took inspiration from another well-known sauce, "Aggiada". A garlic-based sauce that is prepared in the same way as pesto through the use of mortar and pestle. This sauce was prepared with vinegar, olive oil, garlic, wine, and breadcrumbs and was usually used on fish.
Aggiada
The Aggiada dates back to Roman times. Where there was a recipe called Moretum
The Romans like the Ligurians were especially fond of their herbs. Recipes of all kinds, from meats to desserts, included a wide array of plants from the garden as seasonings. One easy and adjustable way to add herbal flavors to dishes was in the form of sauces and spreads
Of the many herb-rich recipes, one of the best recorded was a spread called moretum. Sometimes it contained garlic, sometimes cheese, and sometimes it was served on bread, but moretum always included a multitude of herbs, with the intent of adding character to the often dull dishes of average Romans.
Virgil
The poet Virgil dedicated a tribute to Moretum.
He described a farmer called Symilus who rises early in the morning and prepares some moretum. Symilus goes to the garden and picks himself four heads of garlic, along with parsley, rue, and coriander seeds. He returns to his cottage and throws those ingredients into a mortar with cheese, salt, and a little vinegar.
As he prepares his moretum, Virgil adds that Symilus’s eyes begin to water and he curses his meal, certainly a result of the offensive odor produced by crushing so much garlic.
Pesto has its roots throughout Italian history from Roman times to now. Over time the sauce has been perfected so that we don't have to cry like Symilus, the only thing we can do is smile while eating pesto.