Basil, pine nuts, garlic, Parmesan, salt, and extra virgin olive oil: this is the recipe for the most famous green sauce in the world. With its simple and genuine ingredients, Pesto Genovese is without a doubt one of the foods that has helped spread the word about typical Ligurian products around the world. Creamy and with an intense and characteristic flavour, Pesto Genovese is a perfect accompaniment to first courses like pasta and potato gnocchi. It has a simple, but strict, preparation, with roots in ancient tradition.

Origins
More than in Liguria, Pesto Genovese most likely has its roots in ancient Rome, in the compound called "moretum", mentioned by Virgil in his texts, prepared with herbs, garlic, oil, vinegar and fresh cheese, and ground in a mortar, to which were added, in some cases, even nuts. Later, in the Middle Ages, a garlic sauce was developed, made from chopped walnuts and garlic, which is considered one of the ancestors of pesto. But to get to the version that we have now, we had to wait until the nineteenth century, specifically in 1865, when the official recipe appeared for the first time in the book of the Ratto brothers, "Cuciniera Genovese", with the definition of "chopped garlic and basil".