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My dad was the son of Italian immigrants and never heard of “pasta fazool” (pasta e fagioli in proper Italian). It must have been popular among immigrant families of southern Italian descent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta_e_fagioli
I don't know if it's authentic Italian from the southern region or not. I think it was popularized by Olive Garden to be honest.
I ate pasta fagioli (we pronounced it "fazool") as a child, courtesy of my father's childhood next-door neighbor, a native of Naples, long before there was Olive Garden.
I ate pasta fagioli (we pronounced it "fazool") as a child, courtesy of my father's childhood next-door neighbor, a native of Naples, long before there was Olive Garden.
Popularized means it came to be more widely known to those without Italian family/friends. Wasn't saying it didn't exist before then.
I don't know if it's authentic Italian from the southern region or not. I think it was popularized by Olive Garden to be honest. It's very filling.
I make it in a crockpot. I think of it as Italian chili.
I had it long before Olive Garden existed, both by Italians who made it and in Italian restaurants.
The first time, I was 20 and had just started working as a secretary in New York City. 1979. I was in a construction field office, and there was a full kitchen. This little Italian construction inspector started a huge pot of pasta fagioli/fazool/fazhool one morning. He put salt pork in the bottom of the pot, then garlic, tomatoes, white and red kidney beans that he partially mashed, and little macaroni about the size of half an elbow macaroni. Let it cook all morning and gave it out at lunchtime with crusty bread. It was wonderful. I've never had any as good since.
Popularized means it came to be more widely known to those without Italian family/friends. Wasn't saying it didn't exist before then.
OK. I've been to an Olive Garden a couple of times. Didn't know they even had it on the menu, but Olive Garden is the only way a lot of people know Italian food. A lot of Italians settled in the NY/NJ region, but not everywhere in the U.S.
I have been singing about pasta fagioli since I was a child. Remember those follow the bouncing ball sing-a-long cartoons? That's Amore was one of the songs. I still sing it all the time and my six year old now joins in. I know, I know I am old!
As for eating it I have been doing that since I was a kid too. It wasn't super common but occasionally someone would make it. Now every couple years I will cook up a batch. It is not my favorite but every now and then I crave it.
To Mighty Queen's point I guess I forget sometimes that food choices were/are different for different regions of the country. Since I grew up in eastern Massachusetts Italian food was just food to us. It was so prevalent that I never once thought of it as ethnic.
Last edited by magicshark; 10-15-2018 at 06:00 AM..
It must have been popular among immigrant families of southern Italian descent.
Yes, it was.
Grains and legumes, plenty of protein, easy to prepare and, accompanied with salad and olive oil, a full and fully nutritious meal by itself, and INEXPENSIVE.
Not like the overpriced sugary and otherwise processed crap masquerading as food too easily available to most people nowadays.
Yes, it's possible to overeat pasta fagioli and get fat.
Anyway, grains and legumes, just like Cubans and other Latin Americans eat lots of rice and beans, fully nutritious, simple and inexpensive, though overeating it without offsetting amounts of exercise leads to weight gain.
In other parts of the world, it's lentils and rice.
Or pasta lenticchie.
Grains and legumes, then, the feeding grasses of earth the world over.
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