Pesto: Liguria’s trademark sauce puts punch in pasta
PORTO VENERE, Italy – Bajeicò is a hole-in-the-wall grocery store which has occupied the same spot on Porto Venere’s narrow main pedestrian road of Via Capellini for 100 years. Not coincidentally, that’s not long before Bajeicò’s main product was invented and transformed the taste of pasta around the world.
Pesto is pasta’s colorful dance partner. It hasn’t been as popular as the ancient tomato sauce or as famous as Bolognese, but pesto is colorful, fun and easy.
Who wouldn’t partner with that?
Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to be in the pesto capital of the world: Liguria. The narrow region that wraps around Italy’s northwest coast like a thick strand of fettuccine is famous for the most important ingredient needed for dreamy pesto: basil. So proud Ligurians are of their pesto, the Associazione Palatifini, a Genoa-based food group, is preparing a proposal to UNESCO to add pesto to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
Bajeicò
And Bajeicò is one of the best places in Italy to try pesto. As I passed the shop, a young woman stood next to the street behind a glass case with a vat of that creamy, green goodness. She dipped a chunk of spongy focaccia bread, another Ligurian specialty, into the pesto and handed it to me.
My mouth exploded. Nutty. Spicy. Salty. This pesto turned a tiny piece of bread into a big flavor dish. I knew I’d be hooked when I came to Liguria and I was. Over four days in Porto Venere with Marina celebrating our 10-year anniversary, I had pesto in a panino, on pasta, on more bread, even on pancakes.
Basil plants are as common in Liguria as tulips in Holland. We saw them potted in cardboard flats all over Porto Venere.
When we walked into Bajeicò’s La Scuola del Pesto near the grocery, four tourists were tearing up pesto leaves and putting them in a big bowl. Behind them were tables with big bowls, each with a wooden mallet inside.
Standing off to the side was instructor Gianrico Massa. Tall, bald and fit, the 62-year-old Massa had the energy of a student teacher. He opened Bajeicò 23 years ago after his family sold the grocery store and started the school in 2023.
“Pesto is special because the Ligurian people invented the pesto,” he said proudly.
Pesto history
As pasta ingredients go, pesto is relatively new. Pecorino has been around since the Roman Empire. The first tomato sauce recipe appeared in Italian cookbooks in 1692. Pesto was introduced in the Ligurian capital of Genoa in 1852 when Emanuele Rossi published a recipe in La Vera Cucineria Genovese (The True Genoese Cuisine).
It became popular in the U.S. in the 1980s but the American version often uses butter and cream. Thus, American pesto often tastes as heavy as coagulated oil. It wasn’t until I moved to Italy in 2014 when I made pesto part of my diet.
However, I admit I Americanize it. I serve it in fusilli pasta with chunks of grilled chicken, along with sundried tomatoes and cover it with grated parmesan or pecorino. I do not admit this in the company of Italians. Eating chicken with pesto is on the same scale as pineapple on pizza on Italy’s gag meter. I told no one in Liguria.
The Gulf of Liguria was too close for comfort.
In Liguria, pesto is traditionally served with trofie pasta. Its short, thin, twisty shape makes it look like tiny corkscrews. It’s Liguria’s trademark pasta and excellent for emphasizing the pesto rather than the pasta.
Nothing else is added except a dusting of parmesan. No sundried tomatoes. And certainly no chicken. It also made for a supreme condiment in my panino.
I asked Massa what’s the secret of good pesto.
“There’s no secret,” he said. “It’s the quality of the products.”
That’s what separates Italian cuisine from American. Italy uses a much higher percentage of natural ingredients than in the U.S. It’s in all dishes in Italy.
I worked as a dough roller at a place called Papa’s Pizza in the summer after my senior year of high school in Eugene, Ore. Every ingredient in the pizza came from a giant box or can: the tomatoes, the pepperoni, the cheese, the vegetables.
The pizza was practically synthetic.
Pesto’s natural ingredients
In Liguria, the pesto comes from the earth. Check out its ingredients:
Basil. Liguria is perfect for basil. It has a unique climate and uses traditional cultivation in the natural soil, especially in the Genoa neighborhood of Pra. The plants are noted for their smaller leaves than the basil I find in my market in Rome. They have more flavor.
Pine nuts. If you’ve been to Italy, you’ve marveled at the tall, slender, elegant trees with the huge green canopy. Those are Mediterranean pine trees and produce the pine nuts that gave pesto it’s name. Pesto means “pine nuts” in Genoan dialect and they are the best in Tenuta di San Rossore near Pisa. The problem with pine nuts is they’re expensive. A small 100-gram (3 ½-ounce) plastic packet in my supermarket costs €5.99.
Crushed garlic. They use garlic from Vessalico, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Genoa. It has the strongest flavor.
Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Sardo. Both hard, salty cheeses must be aged 36 months to make them easy to grate.
Olive oil. It’s extra virgin from the western part of Liguria, known as the Ligurian Riviera, where they grow the particular Taggiasca olives, known for their stronger taste.
Massa’s class would take all the ingredients and make them in the big bowls on their table. However, that tradition, admittedly challenging, has given way to the easy method of just using a blender.
“We remain in the little town and make pesto in the traditional way like 100 years ago,” Massa said.
I asked Massa for what dishes he recommends with pesto. He smiled, shook his head and simply said, “Trofie with pesto. And a little parmesan.”
“No sundried tomatoes?”
“No.”
“No chicken?”
“WHAT!?”
It was a good time to buy a bottle of his 100-gram jar of pesto and scat. If you’re interested, this is a good traditional Italian recipe for pesto from Giallo Zafferano (Yellow Saffron), a popular Italian cooking website:
Recipe
Basil 2.5 oz (70 gr.)
Extra virgin olive oil ⅓ cup (70 gr.)
Parmigiano Reggiano ½ cup (50 gr.)
Pecorino Sardo ¼ cup (30 gr.)
Pine nuts 1 oz. (30 gr.)
Garlic 2 cloves
Salt ¼ tsp. (3 gr.)
Preparation
- Remove the basil leaves from the stems and place them in a colander. Rinse under cold water and transfer them to a dish towel to dry by rubbing gently.
- Remove the germ from the garlic cloves and cut them in half. Place them in a bowl, preferrably a marble mortar. Work the garlic with a wooden pestle until you get a cream. Add the pine nuts and continue grinding.
- Once a paste is formed, add the basil leaves and salt.
- Always start with pounding movements then do circular movements. Make sure you scrape around the inside of the mortar with a spoon to unstick the ingredients. Once the paste is creamy, add the pecorino. Grind it the same way then add the Parmigiano Reggiano. Repeat grinding.
- When the ingredients have been reduced to cream, add the oil. Stir for a couple more minutes.
If you’re thinking of going …
How to get there: Fly into Milan or, even closer, Genoa. Milan is 220 kilometers (130 miles) from La Spezia. The 2-hour, 50-minute train ride starts at €21. Genoa is 105 kilometers (60 miles) away and the 1-hour, 45-minute ride is about one hour and starts at €9.70. From La Spezia, local buses leave frequently for Porto Venere. The 20-minute ride is €1-€3. From Rome I paid €160 for two round-trip tickets.
How to do it: Bajeicò La Scuola del Pesto, Via Capellini 86, 39-335-351-153, 39-0187-791-054, massagianrico@gmail.com, lessons 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., 6:30-7:30 p.m., €50, reservations needed.
Where to stay: Appartamento Mariella, Via Prima Traversa Olivo, 20, 39-380-450-9997. Lovely, spacious apartment 10 minutes from the center with full kitchen facilities and balcony looking out to the sea. I paid €375 for three nights.
Where to eat: La Chiglia, Via dell’Olivo 317, 39-0187-792-179, lachigliasrl@gmail.com, noon-2:30 p.m., 7-10 p.m. Excellent fish restaurant with local fish 50 meters from apartment. Don’t miss the fish salad appetizer. I paid €60 for a split appetizer, two main dishes and wine.
When to go: June or September. Temperatures range from low 60s to high 70s. In mid-May we had temps in the 60s with a little rain. As the rest of Italy, avoid July and August. It already seemed crowded in May.
For more information: Pro Loco Porto Venere, Via G. Bastreri Square, https://www.portovenere.com/, 3-7 p.m. spring-summer, 3-6 p.m. fall-winter, Thursday-Tuesday.