Pasta is actually my favourite food in the world. I adore pasta. I don’t care that it’s a high carb meal, I don’t care if it’s the quickest way to gain weight even if you don’t want to, pasta is still the best thing in the world.

You get various different pasta dishes, but one of my quick and easy go-to recipes is the Italian Basil Pesto Pasta. This has always been a popular type of dish, but the way the Italians cook it is very different to majority of the rest of the world. Since being given the opportunity to experience Italy for myself during my yachting days, I have learnt a lot about Italy as a culture and as the famous origins of pasta.

Pasta was one of my exceptionally favourite parts about being in Italy, as they are famous and well known for their pizzas and pastas, along with their cheeses, particularly Parmesan cheese. I think majority of tourists generally take a trip to Italy to experience Italian food first-hand and I can fully understand why.

While I was working on my last yacht, before deciding to leave the industry, I was actually on a boat in the heart of Italy, in a city called Imperia. It’s not a commonly visited city, but not unheard of. I ended up joining my very last boat there, before moving to the shipyard in Savona, Vado Ligure.

Onboard, we had a temporary (we were all basically temporary) Italian crew cook, which made sense considering our location. This man ended up making a pot of pasta with every single meal, especially at lunch time. I would never have complained due to my love for pasta and it’s practically an Italian’s staple diet.

However, there was one particular pasta that he ended up cooking more than the other pasta dishes – Pesto Fiore (made with Trofie pasta). This type of pasta, Trofie, is from Liguria, and is believed to have originated from Sori, Recco and Camogli. It’s designed in a way that resembles wood shavings, with a  short, tight and chewy spiral. I honestly have not come across such a pasta in South Africa, and had only known of it when the Italian cook continuously made it more than once a week.

The uniqueness of this pasta lies beyond a simple mix of Trofie pasta and basil pesto; green beans and potatoes are fondly added to the dish by traditional Italians and it was heavenly to discover. I only discovered this when I wound up at restaurants and decided to go for my beloved meal on the menu, as our cook didn’t bother to add green beans and baby potatoes to allow his fellow, foreign crew members to experience authentically cooked Pesto Fiore.

I was a little surprised by the double carbs of the meal, until I saw the portion size as well as the moderation and size of added (baby) potatoes. It was delicious. Nevertheless, I would not have been deterred had the balance of the carbs been off. I particularly enjoyed the added flavours and texture of green beans in the mix of soft pasta and potatoes and thought it was a nice add of vegetables as well.

When I finally returned home to my family after holding in the anticipation of sharing my new specific, favourite pasta, I was overjoyed to be able to try cook the meal for myself and my family. The only problem was that we don’t stock Trofie pasta, as far as I am aware. At least there is none in the main chain supermarkets. I ended up replacing the Trofie with Angel Hair pasta, which was just as good.

I do tend to prefer the long stringed type of pastas to the short noodles, but for Macaroni and Cheese, obviously the short macaroni is the only right way.

The best part of cooking this meal at home was that I had also imported two blocks of authentic Italian Parmesan cheese, specifically from Lake Como. Adding real Italian cheese is what topped the dish off just the right way.

My cooking of my version of “Pesto Fiore” was a hit amongst my family, apart from my mother who simply does not enjoy the taste of Basil Pesto. Each to their own. What I like about it as well is the fact that it’s such a quick, simple and easy recipe when you don’t know what to cook or if you want to make something good but don’t want to put too much effort into it. The green beans and potatoes are also completely optional and sometimes I am not in the mood to stand there and wait for baby potatoes to boil to softness, when my dish could be ready with 5-10 minutes, if you use the Angel Hair pasta specifically.

I don’t cook it too often, otherwise it is very easy to make the grave mistake of eating it too much to the point that you are put off  by it. In essence, Pesto Fiore was one of my best food discoveries, especially since I was fortunate enough to experience it in the Land of Pasta (Italy). Pasta is amazing, a remedy to a bad day and an overall endorphin boost.

Life is short, and if you live to restrain yourself from the finer things in life, then happiness is never easy to reach. I pose the rhetorical question of, what is life without pasta?