Pesto has been pointed out that pesto is essentially a combination of flavourful leaves, oily nuts, hard cheese, olive oil, garlic, salt and lemon juice; any ingredients meeting this description can produce a pesto-like condiment. "Pesto alla siciliana", sometimes called "pesto rosso" (red pesto), is a sauce from Sicily similar to "pesto alla genovese" but with the addition of tomato, almonds instead of pine nuts, and much less basil. "Pesto alla calabrese" is a sauce from Calabria consisting of (grilled) bell peppers, black pepper and more; these ingredients give it a distinctively spicy taste. Outside Italy, the household name "pesto" has
Pesto by crushing garlic, salt, cheese, herbs, olive oil and vinegar together. The use of this paste in the Roman cuisine is mentioned in the "Appendix Vergiliana", an ancient collection of poems where the author dwells on the details about the preparation of "moretum". During the Middle Ages, a popular sauce in the Genoan cuisine was "agliata", which was basically a mash of garlic and walnuts, as garlic was a staple in the nutrition of Ligurians, especially for the seafarers. The introduction of basil, the main ingredient of modern pesto, occurred in more recent times and is first documented only in