Minestrone is a hearty vegetable and pasta soup. If you go to an Italian restaurant for lunch, you can order a bowl of minestrone. Yum!
Most minestrone is tomato-based and includes a variety of vegetables, pasta or rice, and beans. Historians believe that a version of minestrone was around before the beginning of the Roman Empire, when it was probably thickened with spelt flour. As time went on and bread became more common, the flour was mainly eliminated from minestrone, although it long had a reputation as "poor people's food." The word comes from the Italian minestra, "soup."