International Best Pesto Winner

The 2008 Golden Pestle for Best Pesto Sauce in the World was awarded to American chef James D. Bowien, trained by Paolo Laboa at the Farina Restaurant in San Francisco

Last week I told you about the World Pizza Championship in Salsomaggiore Terme. Meanwhile, on 19 April 2008 another international contest saw the world's top 100 pesto makers pound for their lives at the second Mortar Made Pesto Championship in the Ligurian city of Genoa, the hometown of pesto sauce.

Against all odds, the Golden Pestle award flew halfway across the globe to San Francisco in California, where James D. Bowien - a young American chef of Korean origin - works as sous chef at the Farina Focaccia & Cucina Italiana Restaurant.

Only 100 entrants out of 315 were selected for the final, and just 17 of them were not Italian - coming from Japan, Lebanon, the USA, Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Germany and Sri Lanka - so James D. Bowien's triumph was no easy feat. In fact, second and third best were amateur cook Mauro Canepa and veteran Alfonsina Trucco, both Genoese.

Chef Bowien learnt how to make pesto from Paolo Laboa, executive chef at Farina's and a trueborn Genoese, but the winning touch seemed to be his oriental flair for perfection: his pesto impressed the panel of 30 experts as the finest, smoothest, silkiest pesto concoction presented by the entrants.

The difference was all in the recipe and the touch of the pounder, because all entrants are allocated the same set of fine ingredients found in the true traditional recipe for the perfect Genoese pesto sauce: Genoese basil, Reggiano Parmesan cheese, Fiore Sardo ewe's milk cheese, Ligurian extra virgin olive oil, Vessalico garlic, sea salt, Italian pine nuts.

By the way, if you wish to enter the 2010 championship throw away your mixer, grab a good old-fashioned wooden pestle and marble mortar and start pouding!