Atlantic Unbound | Interviews

Atlantic Unbound | November 14, 2002
[From The Pleasures of Slow Food, by Corby Kummer]

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Garibaldi Family
Cà di Gòsita
Ligura, Italy

iuseppe Garibaldi spent many years as a Stevedore on the Genoa docks before being able to make his family farm, in the steep hills of Liguria, thrive again. With his savings, he convinced his mother, Maria Ines, to cook at a tiny, lovely restaurant and inn, Cà di Gòsita, that he opened in the farmhouse. The family specialty is cooking "under the campana," or terra-cotta cloche, on the floor of a wood-fired oven.

Diners feel like guests in a farm family, because that's what they are. Fellow guests usually include local politicians and professionals who make their way up the hill for a taste of local history they simply can't get elsewhere anymore. Not every mother has the same knowledge of local food in her hands that Maria Ines does, nor a son willing to build a little house off the terrace just for the huge hearth.

The most spectacular, and most Ligurian, thing that mother and son cook are testaroli, thick crepes cooked in molds, painted with pesto, and piled up like a stack of flapjacks. The molds, with medieval checkered patterns, are emblematic of this part of Liguria.

So, of course, is pesto, made with the tiny-leaved basil that grows in plastic-coated greenhouses up and down the surrounding hillsides.

Pesto alla Genovese

This pesto is good on almost anything—certainly crepes, potatoes quartered and boiled (an especially popular combination in Liguria), and maybe even pancakes low on sugar. If you've never made pesto by hand, please try this recipe. Not only will you experience the reanimating "exhilaration" the writer Patience Gray says comes from pounding fresh, fragrant things, but you'll also have an incomparably creamy pesto to put on pasta for a simple, yet full, supper.

Makes 1 cup, enough for 1 pound of pasta

2 large cloves garlic

Kosher salt to taste

2 cups whole basil leaves

2 bunches Genoese (small-leaved) basil, about 36 leaves per bunch, or any available small-leaved green basil

7 tablespoons pine nuts, lightly toasted

1 1/4 cup grated pecorino cheese, preferably Sardinian

1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

6 tablespoons olive oil, preferably Ligurian extravirgin, plus more as needed

1. In a medium stone mortar, pound the garlic and pinch of salt into a smooth paste with a pestle.

2. Gradually add the basil leaves, continuing to pound. Add the pine nuts and both cheeses and pound into a smooth paste.

3. Add the 6 tablespoons olive oil, drop by drop, grinding the pestle in a circular motion until the pesto is completely amalgamated. Add more olive oil to adjust the taste or texture as you like.

4. Season with salt.

NOTE: Add 1 or 2 teaspoons of pasta water to the pesto to make it creamy before tossing with pasta or potatoes.