Pistou Pistou Pistou (Provençal: "pisto" or "pistou" , ), or pistou sauce, is a Provençal cold sauce made from cloves of garlic, fresh basil, and olive oil. It is somewhat similar to the Ligurian sauce pesto, although it lacks pine nuts. Some modern versions of the recipe include grated parmesan, pecorino or similar hard cheeses. In the Provençal dialect of Occitan, "pistou" means "pounded". The sauce is derived from the Genoese pesto, which is traditionally made of garlic, basil, pine nuts, grated Sardinian Pecorino, and olive oil, crushed and mixed together with a mortar and pestle. The key difference between pistou
Pesto the regions of Liguria, Italy, and Provence, France. It was abundant in this part of Italy, though only when in season, which is why marjoram and parsley are suggested as alternatives when basil is lacking. Ratto mentions Dutch cheese (""formaggio olandese"") instead of pecorino sardo since Northern European cheeses were actually common in Genoa at the time, thanks to the centuries-long commercial trades of the maritime republic. This recipe for "pesto alla genovese" was often revised in the following years (a noted revision by Emanuele Rossi occurred in 1865, only a couple of years after Ratto's "Cuciniera"), and it shortly