Minestra di pane.jpg
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Minestrone (; ) is a thick
soup Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, milk, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ing ...
of Italian origin made with vegetables, often with the addition of pasta or rice, sometimes both. Common ingredients include
bean A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...
s, onions, celery,
carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', nat ...
s, leaf vegetables,
stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
, parmesan cheese and tomatoes. There is no set
recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe. His ...
for minestrone, since it can usually be made out of whatever vegetables are at one's disposal. It can be vegetarian, contain
meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...
, or contain an animal bone-based stock (such as chicken stock). Food author Angelo Pellegrini claimed that the base of minestrone is bean broth, and that borlotti beans (also called Roman beans) "are the beans to use for genuine minestrone".


History

Some of the earliest origins of minestrone soup pre-date the expansion of the Latin tribes of Rome into what became the
Roman Kingdom The Roman Kingdom (also referred to as the Roman monarchy, or the regal period of ancient Rome) was the earliest period of Roman history when the city and its territory were ruled by kings. According to oral accounts, the Roman Kingdom began wi ...
(later Roman Republic and Empire), when the local diet was "vegetarian by necessity" and consisted mostly of vegetables, such as onions, lentils,
cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...
,
garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus ''Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Allium fistulosum, Welsh onion and Allium chinense, Chinese onion. It is native to South A ...
, broad beans, mushrooms,
carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', nat ...
s, asparagus, and turnips. During this time, the main dish of a meal would have been ''pulte'', a simple but filling porridge of
spelt Spelt (''Triticum spelta''), also known as dinkel wheat or hulled wheat, is a species of wheat that has been cultivated since approximately 5000 BC. Spelt was an important staple food in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times. No ...
flour cooked in salt water, to which whatever vegetables that were available would have been added. It was not until the 2nd century BCE, when Rome had conquered 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 ''pulte'' became a meal largely for the poor. The ancient Romans recognized the health benefits of a 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 CE made up of farro, chickpeas, and fava beans, with onions, garlic, lard, and greens thrown in. As eating habits and ingredients changed in Italy, so did minestrone. Apicius updates the ''pultes'' and ''pulticulae'' with fancy trimmings such as cooked brains and wine. 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 aristocracy and nobles.


Etymology

The word ''minestrone'', meaning a thick vegetable soup, is attested in English from 1871. It is from Italian ''minestrone'', the
augmentative An augmentative (abbreviated ) is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive. Overaugmenting something often makes it grotesque and so in so ...
form of ''minestra'', "soup", or more literally, "that which is served", from ''minestrare'', "to serve" and
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with ''administer'' as in "to administer a remedy". Because of its unique origins and the absence of a fixed
recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe. His ...
, minestrone varies widely across Italy 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; it may also include
meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...
s. 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 Fish soup is a food made by combining fish or seafood with vegetables and stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a ...
; ''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 A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. A stew needs to have raw ingredients added to the gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables and ...
, though the meaning has now come to be associated with this particular dish.


Regional variations

''Minestrone alla Genovese'' is a variant typical of Liguria, which contains greater use of herbs, including pesto. ''Minestra'' is a variant from Malta, which prominently features ''kunserva'' (a thick tomato paste), potatoes,
kohlrabi Kohlrabi (pronounced ; scientific name ''Brassica oleracea'' Gongylodes Group), also called German turnip or turnip cabbage, is a biennial vegetable, a low, stout cultivar of wild cabbage. It is a cultivar of the same species as cabbage, broccol ...
,
cauliflower Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species ''Brassica oleracea'' in the genus ''Brassica'', which is in the Brassicaceae (or mustard) family. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed. Typically, only the head is eaten – the ...
, and sometimes spaghetti. ''Imbakbaka'' or ''Mbakbaka'', is a type of stew in Libya made with pasta, chickpeas, Bzar spice, and meat. It originated through colonization from the Italian Empire.


See also

*
Pasta e fagioli ''Pasta e fagioli'' (), meaning "pasta and beans", is a traditional Italian pasta soup. It is often called pasta fasul or pasta fazool in the New York Italian dialect, derived from its Neapolitan name, ''pasta e fasule''. Preparation Recipes for ...
*
List of Italian soups This is a list of notable Italian soups. Soups are sometimes served as the '' primo'', or first course in Italian cuisine. In some regions of Italy, such as Veneto, soup is eaten more than pasta. Italian soups * Acquacotta – originally a ...
*
List of legume dishes This is a list of legume dishes. A legume is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for their food grain seed (e.g. beans and lentils, or generally pulse) ...
* List of soups * List of vegetable soups


References

{{Soups Italian cuisine Maltese cuisine Italian soups Italian inventions Vegetable soups