Life is a Minestrone
Back in the 1970s, British pop band “10cc” sang:
“Life is a Minestrone, Served up with parmesan cheese. Death is a cold Lasagne, Suspended in deep freeze”
Take a quick listen — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAB7nQS7Wp4
The songwriters, Lol Creme and Eric Stewart, believed the phrase — Life is a Minestrone — to be a good title for a song on the grounds that life is “a mixture of everything we pile in there”.
Indeed, Minestrone is a thick soup of Italian origin with lots of vegetables and beans, and sometimes pasta or rice, thrown in. And it is one of my favourites.
Some of the earliest origins of Minestrone soup pre-date the expansion of the Latin tribes of Rome into what became the Roman Kingdom (later Roman Republic and Empire), when the local diet was “vegetarian by necessity” and consisted mostly of vegetables, such as onions, lentils, cabbage, garlic, broad beans, mushrooms, carrots, asparagus, and turnips.
Today, Minestrone typically includes onions, celery, carrots, leaf vegetables, stock, Parmesan cheese, and tomatoes. It traditionally is made without meat.
But there is no set recipe and should always be made based on intuition and feeling.
It was in this spirit that I recently made some delicious Minestrone. I noticed that we had a bunch of nearly overripe tomatoes that were screaming out for cooking, along with some frozen vegetables which can make cooking easy.That’s how I started.
So here is my approximate recipe:
Finely chop one onion and a head of garlic and then fry until golden.
Finely chop about 6 small tomatoes, and add to the saucepan.
Add the packet of frozen vegetables to the saucepan.
Most importantly add a bouquet garni to the saucepan.
Bouquet garni (French for “garnished bouquet”) is a bundle of herbs usually tied with string and mainly used to prepare soup, stock, casseroles and various stews. The classic bouquet garni comprises three ingredients – bay leaves, thyme and parsley. But you can also add sage and even celery.
Then simmer for about 45 minutes. Add a bit of tomato paste, if you wish.
The result was delicious! But when do you eat Minestrone?
Being a soup, it is natural to eat Minestrone as a starter. And hearty versions of Minestrone are ideal for colder weather.
But personally, I love Minestrone for breakfast, with some nice crusty bread. It’s a great way to start the day.
“Buon appetito”!