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 Italy’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 Italy 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.
Enrica Monzani — 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 Laurel Evans 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 Italy 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
Transcript available here
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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 Italy
Become a Premium Member to get all future issues (as well as the full back catalog), or unlock the single issue here.
Ligurian recipes from Italy 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
