The perfect accompaniment to pasta, this versatile sauce keeps summer on the table all year round

It seems to be the way of things for the Western world to appropriate ingredients from other cultures and make them their own. As Anthony Bourdain said in Parts Unknown, “The story of food is the story of appropriation, and war, and mixed marriages, and, you know, it constantly changes.”

Our eagerness to conquer new ingredients means they often end up misused. In some cases they get over-used and end up being discarded in favour of the next trend, like sundried tomatoes in the 1990s.

Pesto seems to have survived the whims of food fashion (though some highly dubious iterations have been spawned), largely by virtue of its name and meaning.

The word comes from the Italian verb “pestare”, which means to crush or pound. Traditional Ligurian pesto is made by pounding basil leaves (the best come from the coastal town of Pra), with coarse salt, garlic, Ligurian extra virgin olive oil, Italian pine nuts and grated parmesan cheese. Pesto alla Genovese has the DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) label, which means that only pesto made this way, and with these ingredients, can be called Genovese, after the capital city of Liguria.

But thanks to the name pesto, a variety of sauces made with ingredients other than the classic Ligurian recipe can be found throughout Italy and the world. In Italy alone you will find pesto made with herbs including marjoram, mint, parsley, sage, oregano and rocket, and vegetables such as eggplant, chicory, peas, fennel, broccoli or zucchini. While pine nuts are traditional to Ligurian basil pesto, pesto is also made in Italy with almonds, walnuts, pistachios and hazelnuts.

In Emilia-romagna, they make pesto Modenese with lard, rosemary, garlic and parmigiano reggiano. When we lived up the coast from Trapani, in western Sicily, we would often eat fresh busiate pasta — little pieces of pasta dough rolled around a knitting needle —with pesto alla Trapanese, which was made with basil (sometimes a little mint), tomatoes, garlic, almonds and olive oil. In some places they would add ricotta, which made the pesto creamier and gave it a gentler taste.

Another lovely pesto I discovered in Sicily uses almonds, basil, orange zest and capers. This makes a great topping for grilled fish. The Sicilians also do a great pistachio pesto, which has a wonderfully verdant green colour. It’s made by pounding or blending pistachios with a mix of mint and basil, pecorino, garlic and olive oil. If you don’t like nuts or you are wanting to cut down on costs, you can leave out the nuts entirely or just use a few — this version is called pesto povera.

Summer basil is still growing in profusion but, as we move into autumn, the basil harvest will come to an end. If you haven’t made it already, now is the time to make basil pesto. It freezes well in ice cube moulds, so you can bring it out later in the year when the weather is grey and dull and bring to the table a perfumed, intoxicating flavour that’s redolent of summer.