Show notes
The northwestern region of Liguria, which slivers up from the Tuscan border toward southern France, brushing Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont along the way, birthed some of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½â€™s biggest culinary icons (think focaccia and pesto alla genovese). But the cuisine is far more complex than it gets credit for — with variations up and down the western and eastern portions of the riviera and farther inland.
For our inaugural Sound Bite with ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Magazine — our snack-sized, short-form audio taste of different Italian territories — we spoke with Ligurian culinary experts and cookbook authors Enrica Monzani and Laurel Evans, who helped us debunk some enduring misconceptions about the area’s food.
— a culinary researcher, experience leader, writer and home cook — is Genoese, through and through, and rebuilt her career around her home region’s cuisine after spending 15 years as a maritime lawyer. She is the author of the bilingual cookbook Liguria in Cucina: The Flavours of Liguria and also writes a newsletter, Taste of Liguria.
Based between Milan and Moneglia, north of the Cinque Terre, Texas-born established her name on the culinary circuit with four cookbooks in Italian on classic American cuisine, and more recently shifted her focus to writing about Ligurian cuisine for English-speaking audiences, including in Liguria, The Cookbook. You may recognize her from an appearance in season 2 of Searching for ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ with Stanley Tucci on CNN.
Audio credits
Development: Alexa Ahern
Concept and co-hosts: Alexa Ahern, Mary Gray
Guests: Laurel Evans, Enrica Monzani
Editing: Kirsten Hills
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Get more Liguria
If this Sound Bite whet your appetite for more Liguria, you’ll want to check out this 80+-page issue of Bellissimo, our quarterly e-magazine for Premium Members. Here’s what’s inside:
- Learn why the iconic Sanremo Music Festival is the only truly national Italian event, breaking down demographic, geographic, and ideological barriers
- Unlock the beauty of the Riviera di Levante beyond overhyped, overcrowded Portofino
- Follow one writer to Seborga, Liguria’s own mini-Monaco, to meet Her Serene Highness Princess Nina, who’s living out a Grace Kelly story
- Climb the narrow, earthy lanes and old mule tracks known as creuze in search of one Genoese hill town’s vanishing past
- Expand your Ligurian palate and learn how to make much more than just pesto at home
- Sample Recco’s legendary focaccia, follow Lord Byron to Porto Venere, peep the coastal views along one new beginner-friendly biking route and the cityscapes as seen from Genoa’s cable cars and lifts
- Plus, get priceless intel on where to eat, sleep and explore all along this magical narrow strip of northwestern ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½
to get all future issues (as well as the full back catalog), or unlock the single issue here.
Ligurian recipes from ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Magazine
Premium Members also get access to our entire archive of recipes. Below, check out a few Ligurian and Liguria-inspired favorites, both traditional and more loose and contemporary.
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This Pasta With Marjoram Pesto is Inspired by 14th-Century Genoese Coins
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This White Pesto From Liguria is a Prime Example of Cucina Bianca
