Superior Sources: Marmotecnica & Pesto in a Italian mortar and pestle

In Search of Pesto

Any tourist will tell you that Italy offers innumerable awe-inspiring revelations. It could be the Pietà, it could be pizza. The Bernini sculptures at the Villa Borghese in Rome, or maybe the arrosticini in the mountains of Abruzzo. For my husband, it was Paestum; for me it was pesto. Not just any pesto, but the genuine article ground out in an Italian mortar and pestle. 

I have made pesto in a blender since I was first introduced to it by a neighbor. And I thought it was wonderful. Maybe it wasn’t ethereal, but it was certainly delicious and easy (not counting the time a spoon got stuck in the blades while the motor was running, and pesto landed on the ceiling). But my husband thought pesto tasted bitter and wore a martyred look when I made it. It was not until I went on product-hunting expeditions in Italy that I experienced what pesto should really taste like. The pesto was a little chunky, but light, aromatic beyond belief  and with a flavor that was delightfully fresh without a trace of bitterness.

The Real Thing: Italian mortar and pestle

For this miracle to occur, we’re not talking about using a teensy mortar with a cute little matching pestle – nice for grinding some salt with garlic and rosemary. Real pesto calls for rather a substantial white marble mortar with a serious wood pestle. We used to import them at La Cuisine from the prized Baudoni family firm  Nuova Marmotecnica in Carrara, Italy. The firm was founded by Giordano Baudoni in 1969 and is still run by him and his son Cristiano. When you visit their website, you’ll see that they specialize in mortars, rolling pins, and meat pounders but offer other beautiful marble decorative pieces as well. I have one with lions-head handles carved by Giordano Baudoni himself.

Unlike many other Italian mortars and pestles marketed to us, the ones from Nuova Marmotecnica are made from Carrara marble and created in Carrara itself. White Carrara marble rather than a darker stone makes it much easier to see the ingredients you are grinding, but more importantly, it is more compact and absorbs less than other materials.  If you put a glass of water in, the next day the water will still be there.  In other materials, as much as half the amount of water will be absorbed in 24 hours. In some cases,  mortars are finished with an unknown substance to make them look polished, which is never done in the Baudoni workshop. The distinctive form with its four “ears”  of the Genovese shape goes back centuries. Apparently, before machine tooling was introduced, the final exam for testing a marble worker’s ability was carving a mortar in this shape. 

Such a mortar and pestle will serve you well for a lifetime, then go on to serve generations to come. No software updates are necessary, there is no service expiration date, and it just takes a small amount of elbow grease. Judging by the number of gyms that have proliferated across the US,  this should not be a problem. For  pesto and similar sauces, I think you need one that is 20cm (8 inches) in diameter, I also use a 14cm (5 1/2 inches) for smaller tasks. 

The Nuova Marmotecnica website offers shipping to the US. This is a kitchen tool worth the investment both for its function and its beauty. Get a smaller one too and use it for grinding small amounts of spices or making a quick paste for a marinade. Having used both  mortars with wood and those with ceramic or stone pestles, I have found it easier to “humor the work” with a wood one. 

We are very fortunate that Nuova Marmotecnica is offering KD readers a 10% discount on their Genovese mortars with a choice of beechwood or olivewood pestles (this is a discount on the product only and not on the shipping). Add the code sc10bl in the field marked “Voucher” on the left side of your order form when you check out. This offer ends October 15, 2019.

The Holy Grail

There are only seven ingredients in this magical sauce – no water, no cream – only  garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan, Pecorino, salt, olive oil and basil. The basil leaves should be small and fragrant and not large and leathery. If you grow basil, they are best picked before the plant starts growing its spiky flowers. I have made pesto with the large and leathery ones, and they will not break down into a paste the way the smaller ones do. Even though there are videos showing people using an up-down crushing or pounding motion, it is more effective to drive your pestle in a left to right circular motion consistently. This process really squeezes the leaves rather than cuts them, and your sauce will have more of that heavenly essential oil that is released from the veins of the basil leaves. I have found that the marble mortar is cold enough so that the process does not heat the leaves and it does not take too much time to reduce these seven sacred ingredients into the pesto of your dreams. Add it to the pasta of your choice. If you want to save it, cover it with a slick of olive oil and wrap it tightly with cling wrap in the fridge. There will be some discoloration but the taste remains sublime.

Remember Anna Del Conte’s adage: Dress your pasta with sauce, not your sauce with pasta!