continue …minestrone with pasta, clear soups, and vegetable purées may not seem like dishes destined to awaken the interest of the glutton or gourmand but this is absolutely mistaken! Soups are a true treasure trove in great Italian cooking, even though somewhat unexplored. A food that is simple and inexpensive to prepare, filling, energizing but low calorie, a combination of liquid and solid, stimulating every sense which can be organically stimulated.
I think of Roman pasta and chickpeas, Venetian pasta and fagioli, lentil soup from Ponza, minestrone with pesto from Genoa, Tuscan ribollita and acqua cotta, Neapolitan cannellini bean soup. These are our own real living manuals of Mediterranean cooking, low in fat and bursting with wholesome nutrition and divine flavors.
Go out, food loving people of the world, and propagate soups. You young and unemployed chefs from Caserta, I promise that, if you take your soups to New York, you are sure to receive honor and glory.
“Men from Berlin and Buenos Aires, boys from Kyoto and Montreal, elderly from Livorno and Baltimore, take a spoon in hand, form and legion and spread the divine word of soup, stracciatella, bean soup and Italian vegetables. Brothers of Italy, Italy awakes with a garland of chickpeas and belt of pumpkin”(head).

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