Ligurian Pesto

Pesto is made by grinding rather than chopping: basil, pine nuts, garlic, coarse salt, grated hard cheese and Ligurian olive oil worked in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle until they turn to paste. The basil matters and comes from the terraces at Pra' west of Genoa, picked young so the leaves carry no trace of mint. It is served with trofie or trenette, and the Genoese version adds sliced potato and green beans cooked in the same water, which sounds wrong and turns out to be the best way to eat it. A championship for making it by hand is held in Genoa.

What you actually see

• The mortar - marble and wood, and why the texture is not the same from a blender.
• Basil from Pra' - grown on terraces west of Genoa and cut young.
• Trofie and trenette - the two pasta shapes it properly belongs with.
• Potato and green beans - cooked in the pasta water and served in the same bowl.

When to go

Basil is at its best from late spring through summer, though the greenhouses supply all year round. Pesto is a lunch dish more than a dinner one in Liguria. The hand-making championship fills Genoa when it comes round. Any plain trattoria a little inland from the coast will do it properly and cheaply.

Honest expectations

Jarred pesto is sold everywhere as a souvenir and much of it contains cashew or sunflower seed instead of pine nuts, with grassy oil. Pine nuts are expensive, so even kitchens cut them. The dish is rich and a full portion defeats most people. Poor versions taste of garlic and very little else.

Nearby

Genoa's old town lanes are the base; the Ligurian coast runs east and west from it.