Pasta e fagioli

The story

Pasta e fagioli is cooked all over Italy, from the Roman version with pork rind to the Neapolitan one with mussels, but Veneto has a strong claim to it. There it is pasta e fasoi, and the preferred beans are borlotti from Lamon, a town in the province of Belluno whose beans carry a protected geographical indication. Beans reached Italy from the Americas after 1492. One account holds that Pope Clement VII gave seeds to the Belluno scholar Giovan Pietro delle Fosse in the mid-1500s and that he took up their cultivation. In Veneto the soup was first made at the end of summer, when pigs were slaughtered, and flavored with lard, pancetta and rind; it then became a winter dish made with salted or smoked pork, and some cooks around Vicenza add potatoes to stretch the beans. Italians long called beans the meat of the poor, and the soup moved from farm kitchens to city tables, gaining rosemary and Parmigiano. Cooks purée part of the beans so the broth turns creamy, and many say it is better the next day. Make a full pot on Sunday; it reheats well through the week with a splash of hot water.