Soup season is perfect for experimenting with new and old meal options. If you’re vegan or looking to make soup on a budget, try this comforting bean soup (Zuppa di Fagioli). This traditional Italian soup recipe comes from Practical Italian Recipes for American Kitchens by Julia Lovejoy Cuniberti, published in 1918. The recipe calls for dried beans of your choice. However, you could substitute canned beans and chicken stock to save time.
This cookbook came out near the end of WWI. Its contents sought to highlight the frugal yet delicious nature of Italian cooking. The forward reads:
In this world war we are learning many lessons from our Allies beside those of the battle field. The housewives of the old world have much to teach us in thrift, especially in the kitchen. Italian cooking—not that of the large hotel or restaurant, but the cucina casalinga of the little roadside hostelry and of the home where the mother, or some deft handmaid trained in the art from infancy, is priestess at the tiny charcoal stove is at once so frugal and so delicious that we do well to study it with close attention. —Julia Lovejoy Cuniberti
If you find this traditional Italian soup recipe helpful, many of Cuniberti’s works have been re-printed and can be found on Amazon.
