Pasta e fagioli

Every Italian family has a pasta e fagioli and every Italian family thinks theirs is the real one. In Tuscany they'll insist on cannellini. In the Veneto they'll swear by borlotti. In Naples they'll crack in a parmigiano rind and a piece of pork skin and dare you to argue. The correct answer, of course, is whichever one your nonna made. Ours used borlotti, because our nonna came from a village near Treviso where borlotti beans grew in the back garden like weeds and got dried in the sun on the balcony every August.

We remember eating this soup as children at a round table with a plastic tablecloth patterned with oranges and lemons, the kind you wipe down with a sponge. It was always served too hot, always eaten too fast, always followed by our nonno announcing that he wanted more, and always given more despite our nonna muttering basta, ti fa male. In our twenties, when we moved into a flat share in a different city, we called her one cold November to ask how long the beans needed to cook. She laughed for about thirty seconds and then gave us a recipe that was almost entirely composed of the phrase finché non ha l'aria giusta, until it looks right.

What follows is our attempt to translate that into actual numbers. Think of it as a thick, brown, savoury soup that sits between a zuppa and a pasta dish, the beans half-mashed into the broth and the little pasta tubes bobbing around looking for something to do. It costs about two euros to make, reheats better than it eats fresh, and makes you feel like an adult for having made it. Perfect for the week after payday, when the ambition is high and the funds are low.