There are seasonal cravings whose origins I can’t account for. Chili and marinara sauce when football starts or cold angel hair pasta with broccoli and parmesan when it’s finally warm enough to eat outside, makes sense to me. 

Pesto, though, played no part in my childhood – from what I can remember, anyway. The memories of working with fresh basil from the garden are from the last decade or so. Still, when the temperature rises, I crave the flavor of fresh basil. 

So, I finally bought a basil plant —  a few months ago, on impulse, during a Wegmans shopping trip. Today, the plant is huge and grows more leaves daily. 

Needless to say, I started digging deep into the best ways to make pesto. More importantly, I wanted to make sure I could make a good batch of pesto without a blender or food processor. As quick as they make the chopping process go, I like feeling the ingredients in my hands and the way their textures change the closer to something else they become. 

It turns out you don’t need a food processor or blender to make pesto. This delicious summertime dish is traditionally made by crushing herbs, pine nuts, and cheese with a mortar and pestle. The word pesto actually comes from the Italian “pestare,” which means to crush. 

However, this tradition disappeared from Italy — in Genoa specifically, where pesto as we know it today was created — once blenders and food processors hit the market. In the early 2010s, making pesto with a mortar and pestle was almost unheard of.

Roberto Panizza, owner of Il Genovese and creator of the World Pesto Championship, explained to BBC in 2016 that the tradition continued outside Genoa but somehow disappeared from the dish’s birthplace. 

"My mum used a blender to make pesto, like all Genoese. Ten or 15 years ago, very few Genoese still used a pestle and mortar to make pesto,” Panizza told Mitzman. “Maybe one or two elderly people for tradition's sake, but it really was something we no longer did.”

To raise awareness about the old — and, in his opinion, superior — way of making pesto, Panizza organized demonstrations. In 2007, Panizza launched the Genoa Pesto World Championship, a pesto-making competition held in Genoa, to attract more interest in this old-school way of making pesto. 

The 2008 winner was Palo Laboa, a Liguria native and winner of Italy’s Best Young Chef in 1992. Today, Laboa is the executive chef of Solo Italiano in Portland, Maine, and hosts foodie-centric tours of Italy. 

While he won Panizza’s competition, Loboa doesn’t necessarily agree that the process has the biggest impact on taste. For Laboa, the ingredients — where your basil is being sourced from and how big the leaves are — have the biggest impact. Today, Laboa and his staff use an industrial-sized blender to feed the many customers who pass through Solo Italiano. 

“I think, 200 years ago, if they had a blender, they’d use a blender,” Laboa joked to The Portland Herald in 2018. It’s the food processor that, to him, ruins a good pesto; the blades shred the basil leaves incorrectly, which impacts the taste. Plus, you lose the texture basil is supposed to have, leaving you with something closer to a glaze.

Regardless of blender or mortar and pestle, Laboa explained his pesto is so good because basil plant leaves are harvested before they get too big. The bigger the leaf, the more bitter the flavor. The best time to harvest basil plant leaves for pesto is when they’re wide and curling, and no bigger than the size of your thumb.

Where you source your pine nuts from matters, too; Loboa told The Herald that pine nuts from China — the kind you’re most likely to find in the grocery store — are too bitter for pesto. Instead, you need to look for Mediterranian Pine Nuts.  

Besides pine nuts and basil, few other ingredients go into pesto. 

Add a pinch or two of sea salt to your pesto mix. According to Laboa, “big salt opens everything. It’s the same idea as crushed red pepper.” 

Cheese, too, is an important pesto ingredient. Laboa uses Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Sardo to add a light, smoky flavor. When he makes pesto, he throws Parmigiano Reggiano in by the handful, though he uses less Pecorino. 

Except for cheese, Laboa also warned against using too much of everything. Garlic, for instance, becomes stronger in taste the longer it sits in a dish. He typically uses one clove for a 2-quart batch of pesto. Basil, too, is an ingredient that you should add slowly, only adding more if the taste of your pesto needs it. 

Laboa measures olive oil by pouring it into his blender until it covers the blades. For small, hand-made batches of pesto, I start with a tablespoon and add olive oil until you get the desired thickness. Just be careful; like with garlic, too much olive oil can dilute and change the flavor of your pesto. 

Whether you make pesto with a mortar and pestle or a blender, you will want to keep checking the flavor. If you feel your flavor is still off, don't be afraid to add more of something. Laboa said that when you’re finished, there should be harmony between the flavors. Just add ingredients in small amounts — a pinch — to avoid overpowering your pesto with an unwanted flavor.   

The tradition of making pesto with mortar and pestle is important, however, especially for Genoaese. 

Making pesto by eye and hand, free of measuring equipment or small appliances, becomes more of a ritual — a magical experience of transforming ingredients into something completely different. The flavor and texture will depend on your mood,  on what you’re feeling at the moment. 

"When I started, it was revolutionary to make pesto with a mortar, Panizza said. “ I've seen old people with tears in their eyes watching me make pesto. They would look at me and say, 'You took me back to when I was a little child.'"

Many who grew up in Genoa remember making pesto in the kitchen on Sunday with their grandparents. Panizza explained, “The child could play at making pesto because he couldn’t hurt himself, there are no knives and flames” when you make pesto with mortar and pestle. When you add small appliances and sharp blades to the mix, the situation is too dangerous for children to help in the kitchen. 

When basil plants yield big, fat leaves, pine nuts go on many people’s grocery lists. While pine nuts are traditionally used to make pesto, Leslie Pariseau writes for Saveaur that early recipes weren’t as strict about the type of herb or nut. 

Walnuts were a popular substitute, given their abundance in the area. Plus, in the past, parsley or marjoram have been used instead of basil. After all, pesto comes from “pastare,” and is about the teqchnique of crushing herbs, pine nuts, cheese, and garlic than a specific herb or flavor.

When I asked Threads what to do with my basil plant, many suggestions for different pesto variations came through. One I keep using is swapping out pine nuts for roasted pistachios. Swapping out basil leaves for mint and cilantro is another popular, refreshing pesto blend.