1 cup dried white beans
2 1/2 quarts water
3 slices bacon, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup thinly sliced onions
1 carrot, diced
1 cup diced potatoes
2 cups diced zucchini
1 cup peeled diced tomatoes
3 cups shredded cabbage
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 cup raw rice
3 tablespoons minced parsley

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Wash the beans, cover with water and bring to a boil.

Let soak 1 hour, drain and add the 2 1/2 quarts water.

Bring to a boil and cook over low heat 1 1/2 hours.

meanwhile, prepare the vegetables.

In a skillet, lightly brown the bacon. Pour off the fat.

Add the oil and onions. Saute 5 minutes.

Mix in the carrot, potatoes and zucchini; sate 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add to the beans (after they have cooked 1 1/2 hours) with the tomatoes, cabbage, salt, pepper, garlic and basil.

Cook over low heat 1 1/4 hours.

Mix in the rice and parsley; cook 20 minutes longer.

Just before serving, stir in the cheese.

Serve with additional grated cheese.

Serves: 8-10.

The recipe in this entry was taken from "The Pleasures of Italian Cooking" by Romeo Salta, with an Introduction by Myra Waldo, photographs by Roberto Caramico, assisted by John Ciofalo. The book was published in New York by The MacMillan Company in 1962. For the complete copyright-free cook book visit www.archive.org.... Image: The month of October, illustration done before 1700. N.B. The author, Romeo Salta, notes in his section on soup: "To most Americans, the classic soup of Italy is undoubtedly minestrone, a very thick vegetable soup containing stands of pasta. The distinction is sometimes drawn in Italy between minestra (light soups) and minestrone (thick, heavy soups), but this difference is not always agreed upon. It seems clear, however, how minestra first originated some fifteen hundred years ago. Italy became a unified countrly only about a cnetury ago; before that, there were principalites, dukedoms and small kingdoms, all of which were on good and bad terms, at various times, with one another over the centuries. Inns and hotels were very few in those days of almost o continual warfare, and it was only at a monastery that the the tired traveler could be assured of obtaining something to eat, for the peasants would lock themselves in their houses at sunset in fear of marauding soldiers. At the monasteries, each morning the good monks would prepare a tremendous pot of thick meat and vegetable soup, which they dispensed to the hungry travelers in the evening, never refusing a single person their generous hospitality. In passing the very world minestra comes from the Latin for "to hand over."

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