Wild garlic pesto
This recipe was written and sent by Denise Aimee Rijnen.
“The wild garlic was associated with the bear by our Germanic ancestors, it was thought that the bear owes its strength to this herb and if people ate wild garlic, they would certainly also attain bear power.”
Denise Aimee Rijnen
About the pestle & mortar
May some pesto be today industrially manufactured by blending traditional ingredients such as basil, olive oil, pine nuts, Parmesan and Pecorino cheese together, the use of a blender is however far from tradition. In fact, the word pesto directly translates from Italian to “pounding” or “crushing”. It is therefore amusing to observe that the very essence of the dish, “pounding” the aromatic herbs instead of warming them up through repetitive knife strokes, has been lost in translation.
The main culprit appears to be missing from our contemporary kitchens: the pestle and mortar. Appearing in history roughly 10.000 years prior to the first knife[1], this efficient utensil had managed to always find its ways around the kitchen up to the 1950’s. With the rise of processed foods the pestle slowly stoped being a kitchen essential due to the fact that sauces, spices and powdered preparations could be bought already grounded for a cheaper price than whole.
Pouding also equals noise and patience. This very fact explains why between the thousands of electrical home appliances mimicking the effects of manual tools such as meat grinders, blenders, toasters, juicers, etc; the pestle and mortar can rarely be found. But along with the revalorisation of time and labor in the home kitchen of today, the pestle and mortar seems to officiate a comeback.
The recipe
Ingredients
20 leaves of wild garlic
50g of pumpkin seeds
50ml of olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Process
- Pick some leaves of wild garlic in your nearby forest or park (April - May)
- Wash the leaves under cold water and dry with a towel
- Finely chop the leaves and bash in a mortar with the seeds and the oil
- Crush, grind and season to taste.
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Notes
- ↑ The pestle and mortar would originate from 35.000BC in comparaison to the knife which would date back to 25.000BC.