The best restaurants in picture perfect Camogli, Liguria.
Read MoreA FOODIES GUIDE TO LIGURA: 10 THINGS YOU NEED TO TASTE
Liguria is home to one of the greatest and richest regional cuisines in the country. Stretching across almost 200 miles of coastline, with mountains on one side and sea on the other, Liguria has access to a diverse range of ingredients, from pine nuts, and basil to fresh seafood.
Read MoreLasagna al Pesto (Mandilli da Saii)
This typical Ligurian dish shows just how proud the Genovese are of their pesto.
Read MoreTorta Pasqualina
Torta Pasqualina is to Ligurians, what the pasty is to a Cornishman. It's part of their cultural DNA.
Layers of paper-thin pastry are filled with regional greens, usually swiss chard but commonly spinach and arugula, whole boiled eggs and a soft cheese like ricotta or prescinsena. Calorific, but nonetheless completely delicious.
This pastry is traditionally prepared at Easter time; the absence of meat makes it a perfect lent time treat. Originally all tarts were prepared with thirty three layers of pastry to represent every year of Christ’s life and twelve boiled eggs, to represent the disciples.
Nowadays, you’ll find it in pasticceria all year round, obviously too tasty to save for a special occasion.
Camogliesi al Rhum
So, you thought you couldn't beat a good profiterole?
In Camogli they have their own version of this puff pastry piece of perfection. The 'Camogliesi al Rhum' is spherical chocolate covered ball of puff pastry, filled with cream and a rum custard.
Need I say more?
Head to any pasticceria in this small fishing village and they'll be more than happy to oblige. You can also buy them with a chocolate custard or occasionally with an amaretto cream filling.
All the Focaccia
These thick, oily, fluffy slabs of joy will make you seriously reconsider the point of any alternative breakfast or snack. In fact, I owe my rapidly decreasing wardrobe (only the baggiest, loosest attire has made the cut) solely to the increase in focaccia I am injesting.
Read MoreSalsa di Noci
I like to think of Salsa di Noci as Pesto’s less popular, vastly underrated little sister. It’s another typical Ligurian salsa fresca, but prepared with walnuts, instead of pine nuts, and olive oil, cheese, garlic, salt and often soaked bread.
Perhaps part of the reason there isn't much buzz about it, is due to its very unfortunate appearance; once the walnuts and cheese are pounded together it forms a sort of sticky, beige substance which no filter can fix.
Read MoreLigurian Food: La Farinata (it's gluten free!)
Italy, land of the refined carbohydrate, has a dirty gluten free secret.
Read MoreFocaccia di Recco col Formaggio
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this is just a cheesier variety of focaccia. In fact, Focaccia di Recco col Formaggio is an entirely different breed of carbohydrate snack in itself.
Read MorePesto please
Pesto, that gloriously green, garlicky, sludgy stuff, has gotten a bad reputation for itself in the UK. Ranking somewhere between a jar of Dolmio’s and a packet of Uncle Ben’s, it is now the remit of impoverished students and busy parents, poured from a La Sacla jar onto a bowl of penne, served with profuse apology and accompanied with a ‘so sorry, its just pesto pasta’.
In Liguria, pesto is revered.
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