Supplementary Information

  • Introduction to Minestrone Soup

  • Beans Used In Minestrone Soup

    • Recipes

  • Chicken Stock

  • Minestrone Genoa Style

  • Peasant Minestrone

  • Vegetable Broth Recipe

  • Vegetable Minestrone

    • Minestrone Soup

    Recipes and Tips for making a delicious soup!

    What is Minestrone Soup?

    Minestrone (minestra [soup] + -one [augmentative suffix], (the one with many ingredients) is the name for a variety of thick Italian soups made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice.

    n.
    A thick soup of Italian origin containing assorted vegetables, beans, pasta such as vermicelli or macaroni, and herbs in a meat or vegetable broth.

    [Italian, augmentative of minestra, dish consisting of pasta, rice, vegetables or beans cooked in water, from Old Italian, from minestrare, to dish up, serve this dish, from Latin ministrare, to serve food, from minister, servant.]

    Italian soups made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice. Common ingredients include beans, onions, celery, carrots, stock, and tomatoes. In Slovenia, it is known as mineštra.

    Soup is considered to be as old as the history of cooking. In times when food was scarce, dumping various ingredients into a pot to boil was not only cheap, it was filling. Its simple constitution made it accessible to rich and poor alike, and simple ingredients made it easy to digest for the both the healthy and sick. Each culture adopted its own variation with the ingredients on hand---Spanish gazpacho, Russian borscht, Italian minestrone---but the basics remain the same.

    Watery gruel is the likeliest origin of soup. Cereals would be roasted and ground into a paste, which would later be cooked. The word "soup" probably derives from the bread over which this gruel was poured, called a "sop" or "sup." Before this word came along, the concoction was called broth or pottage. Gruel remains a staple in some cultures, but is sometimes made of other starchy foods, such as legumes, chestnuts or root vegetables.

    Cooking soup held certain appeals and advantages to our culinary ancestors. Unlike the hot air rising from a roasting fire, boiling water comes into full contact of submerged foods. This allows for a quicker cooking time and more complete cooking. It also opens up foods to new flavors. For instance, cereal grains release starch into the liquid and cause it to thicken. Combing several ingredients and allowing them to mix together creates a new flavor. Soup allowed certain animal parts, particularly bones, not to go to waste because boiling them extracts a natural flavor. Some inedible plants, such as acorns, become consumable after boiling away poisons or undesirable flavors.

    Historians believe soup served as the foundation for the first public restaurants in 18th century Paris. Soups such as broth, bouillion and consommé made their debut in these "restoratifs," the word from which we derive "restaurant."

    While soup's defining characteristic is its liquid, etiquette experts say we eat soup--as opposed to drinking it--because it is part of the meal, according to Foodtimeline.org. Consistency, preparation and ingredients do not make usually make difference in how it is consumed.

    Soup became portable as science advanced. "Pocket soup" was popular with colonial travelers because it could easily be mixed up with a little water. Canned and dehydrated soups came along in the 19th century and kept cowboys and soldiers fed on the trail. Later, soups could be tailored to meet diet restrictions, such as low salt and high fiber.

    There is no set recipe for minestrone, since it is usually made out of whatever vegetables are in season. It can be vegetarian, contain meat, or contain a meat-based broth (such as chicken stock). Minestrone is one of the cornerstones of Italian cuisine, and is just about as common as pasta on Italian tables.

    Some of the earliest origins of minestrone soup pre-date the expansion of the latin tribes of Rome into what became the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire, when the local diet was "vegetarian by necessity" and consisted mostly of vegetables, such as onions, lentils, cabbage, garlic, fava beans, mushrooms, carrots, asparagus and turnips.

    During this time, the main dish of a meal would have been "pulte" or puls in English, a simple but filling porrige of spelt flour cooked in salt water, to which whatever vegetables were available would have been added. It wasn't until the second century B.C., when Rome had conquored Italy and monopolized the commercial and road networks, that a huge diversity of products flooded the capital and began to change their diet, and by association, the diet of Italy[ most notably with the more frequent inclusion of meats, including as a stock for soups.

    Spelt flour was also removed from soups, as bread had been introduced into the Roman diet by the Greeks, and Rome had opened their first commercial "fornaio", or bakery, in 171 B.C and puls became a meal largely for the poor.

    However, the ancient Romans recognized the health benefits of simple or frugal diet(from the latin fruges, the common name given to cereals, vegetables and legumes) and thick vegetable soups and vegetables remained a staple.

    Marcus Apicius's ancient cookbook De Re Coquinaria described polus, a Roman soup dating back to 30 AD made up of farro, chickpeas, and fava beans, with onions, garlic, lard, and greens thrown in.

    The Roman army is said to have marched on minestrone and pasta e ceci (or a European kind of beans and pasta), the former making use of local and seasonal ingredients, the latter due to the longevity of dried goods.]

    However, as eating habits and ingredients changed in Italy, so did their minestrone. Apicius updates the pultes and pulticulae with fancy trimmings such as cooked brains and wine, "illustrating the ever-present desire to improve — to glorify, as it were, a thing which once was or still is of vital importance in the daily life of humans. The nouveaux-riches of the ancient and the modern world cannot find it easy to separate themselves from their traditions nor are they wont to put up with their plainness, hence the fancy trimmings", according to researchers on the subject.

    The introduction of tomatoes and potatoes from the Americas in the Mid 16th Century changed the soup by making available two ingredients which have since become staples.

    However, the tradition of not losing rural roots continues today, and minestrone is now known in Italy as belonging to the style of cooking called "cucina povera" (literally "poor kitchen") meaning dishes that have rustic, rural roots, as opposed to "cucina nobile" or the cooking style of the artistocracy and nobles.

    Like many Italian dishes, minestrone was probably originally not a dish made for its own sake, like for example the ancient Roman green onion soup "Patella Lucretiana", or Lucrezio's dish, though this point is argued. In other words, whereas one might set about gathering green onions, anchovies, herring sauce and honey, as called for by the recipe for Lucrezio's green onion soup, one did not gather the ingredients of minestrone with the intention of making minestrone, as evidenced by the fact the name "minestrone" did not appear until the fourteenth century (see Etymology). The ingredients were pooled from ingredients for other dishes, often side dishes or "contorni" plus whatever was left over, rather like the "pulte".

    There are two schools of thought on when the recipe for minestrone became more formalized. One argues that in the 1600s and 1700s minestrone emerged as a soup using exclusively fresh vegetables and was made for its own sake (meaning it no longer relied on left-overs), while the other school of thought argues that the dish had always been prepared exclusively with fresh vegetables for its own sake since the pre-Roman "pulte", but the name minestrone lost its meaning of being made with left-overs.

    The word minestrone has its root in the latin word "minus" or minor or less, which was applied to servants, as they were considered subordinates. Hence, the word "minestrone" originates from the latin word "minestrare" or literally "that which is served,". The verb is from circa 1300, originally "to serve (food or drink)" and shares the same root as the verb and noun "minister".

    Due to its unique origins and the absence of a fixed recipe, minestrone is not particularly similar across Italy: it varies depending on traditional cooking times, ingredients, and season. Minestrone ranges from a thick and dense texture with very boiled-down vegetables, to a more brothy soup with large quantities of diced and lightly cooked vegetables that may include meats.

    In modern Italian there are three words corresponding to the English word 'soup': zuppa, which is used in the sense of tomato soup, or fish soup; minestra, which is used in the sense of a more substantial soup such as a vegetable soup, and also for 'dry' soups, namely pasta dishes; and minestrone, which means a very substantial or large soup or stew, though the meaning has now come to be associated with this particular dish.

    Minestrone alla Genovese is a variant typical of Liguria, which contains greater use of herbs, including pesto.

    Heinz minestrone has been one of the soup range's best-sellers since its introduction in the early 1960s. Along with the contemporaneous fad for Italian-style suits and motorcycles, adapted version of Italian dishes - such as spaghetti bolognese - had become popular following the advent of coffee bars and cafes opened by Italian migrants in the 1950s,

    Every family in Italy makes its own variation of minestrone, which means literally “big soup,” from the word “minestra.” One may insist on using spinach, while another may argue for leeks and swiss chard. One may put parmesan cheese on the served plate, another may prefer just a few drops of olive oil.The combination that follows adds some “pesto,” which has become a favorite sauce in all of Italy, from its original Genoese origin. The vegetables are to some extent interchangeable (use swiss chard instead of spinach, or extra onions and no leeks). The taste of slow-simmered vegetables and cannellini beans contrasts with the bright flavors of basil and garlic in the pesto. If you have a rind of Parmigiano Reggiano, this is a good place to use it, by cooking it together with the vegetables and then discarding it before serving the soup.

    Few soups cause as many arguments as Italian minestrone soup does. Even its history is debated - is there a specific recipe from days gone by, or has it always been a type of "leftover" soup? Is there a "classic" version of the recipe, or is it regional and seasonal as pasta often is? Should the broth be thick and starchy, or should it be light and fresh?

    Minestrone can have either a meat-based or a vegetable-based broth. Also, you can include meat or not as you see fit, so this soup can certainly be prepared as a vegetarian meal. If you decide to go this route, you can also add some rice. This combination of grain (rice) and legume (beans) will make a complete protein. Rice is not universally added, but is not uncommon either.

    Almost all Italian minestrone soup will contain beans, such as navy, cannelloni or Great Northern beans. Also, pasta is a common addition, typically something small like macaroni, tortellini or even broken up spaghetti. Lastly, any good minestrone will have tomatoes, regardless of whatever other vegetables you add. The tomatoes add a lot of flavor to the broth, so if you are using canned tomatoes make sure to use the liquid too.

    The rest is pretty much up to you. If you have left over veggies, toss them in. Got something in the garden you want to use? Go for it! Found a sale on frozen peas? You can use those too!

    image of a minestrone soup

    See Also