Dear Friends of Pesto Fresco, as anticipated last week, today’s article is dedicated to the beautiful book Pesto & Buridda, an exciting journey into the Ligurian culinary universe.

Pesto & Buridda turns simple recipes into stories, adventures, pranks, and jokes.

Cooking narrated and prepared with love is obviously quite different from “textbook” cooking. It is a peculiar book, capable of taking the reader into the atmosphere from which many of Ferrer Manuelli’s recipes sprang. Through storytelling, it takes him into the mind of the cook, into the hands of those who prepare the dishes and those who eat, and unveils the life of a great Ligurian cook, or nearly so, Ferrer Manuelli , “Oste di Prua,” who was a very important figure in the Ligurian and Italian gastronomic scene.

Pesto & Buridda was written by the “sure pen” (That’s what the Editor called it) of Dario G. Martini, prominent poet and writer as well as journalist and essayist, and Ferrer Manuelli. It contains valuable contributions by Luigi Veronelli and Enzo Tortora and has stupendous illustrations made by Eliseo Salino, ceramist, humorist, gastronome, illustrator, one of the protagonists of Albisola’s Artistic Adventure in the twentieth century. All great friends.

The book is also particularly valuable because it contains 100 recipes from the Oste di Prua, for a cuisine with one eye on the sea and one on the land, made up of simple and direct cooking of fish and equally direct and simple cooking of meat and vegetables, but more patient.

“In my opinion, he is of the highest class, he is truly the great master of Ligurian cuisine, and I am pleased to be able to be the one to recommend to you, from the bottom of my heart, his fabulous recipes.” With these words Enzo Tortora concludes his talk on Pesto & Buridda.

A book to have, to read, and to use!