Italian Soups

Italian soups owe their character, to two elements, the season and their place of origin.

The season determines the choice of vegetables, legumes and herbs used to infuse flavour and the other, simply determines the exact position of where you are by simply observing the main ingredients of the soup.

In Tuscany the beans and the crusty thick bread will tell you that you near Florence, in the south, the tomato, garlic, olive oil and pasta will introduce to Napoli and Mt Vesuvius, up north the use of rice will indicate the road to San Siro for the Milan derby and the widely popular fragrant soups of the riviera will show you some of the best coastline in the world.

Zuppe, bolliti and brodi are widely used in Italian kitchens as all the regions of this small but very populated peninsula.

All the Regions have their own recipes and some variations to soups.

The minestrone in Napoli is slightly different from the Venetian version. This variation is due to produce availability and the influence of other countries that border Italy.

Also these variations are not explained in books or recipes but through research that I have stumbled upon whilst working in various kitchens and restaurants

I have also discovered that variations do not only appear in recipe books from region to region but within the region itself.

My last trip to Italy with Lilly was all about Regional, rustic, home-cooked food, the food that not only feeds your belly but your soul.

I remember eating a minestra di gallina con fagioli in Molinara, this rich soup was made from fresh hand picked rape, rughetta, spinaci, fagioli (borlotti beans) and a farm grown hen that simply infused the broth with this heavenly aroma of chicken.

The old hen had grown on pasta and vegetable scraps and little concime, or damaged wheat grain there was no steroids or unhealthy weight gaining powders used on growing these birds, it was simply a case of growing old gracefully.

Just before we left Molinara I picked more of the vegetables that were in season at the time and went back to Marigliano to make lots of soups that I shared with Zio Ernesto.

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