Minestrone comes in all sorts of varieties. This one is Sardinian, and is made with chickpeas, though Alessandro Molina Pradelli says some prefer to use other kinds of legumes instead. The recipe is drawn from his La Cucina Sarda. It will serve 6, and calls for:

• 1 pound (500 g) chickpeas
• 8 ounces (200 g) ditalini or other small tubular pasta
• 1/2 pound (200 g) tomato pulp (blanch, peel, seed, drain and chop the tomatoes), or 4 dried tomatoes
• 2 small cardoons, diced
• A head of Belgian Endive
• 1/2 a celery rib, chopped
• A carrot, sliced
• An onion, diced
• Pork bones or rinds (you'll want them untreated, from your butcher)
• Olive oil to taste
• Salt

Soak the chickpeas for at least 24 hours, or more if you have the time. Rinse them well, picking through them to remove stray stones, rub them between your fingers to eliminate seed skins, and set them to cook in 2 quarts of water, with the tomatoes, cardoons, endive, celery, carrot, onion, and pork bones or rind.

Cover and simmer over a low flame for at leas two hours. When the chickpeas have become soft, uncover the pot, stir in the pasta, and cook until it is done, stirring occasionally lest the pasta stick down. Let the soup rest for a few minutes, and serve it with a cruet of good olive oil for your diners to drizzle over their soup.

Variations:

You can add cauliflower or cabbage, and, if you want to enrich the flavor, you can sauté the herbs (carrot, celery and onion) in a couple ounces of mashed cured lard (you'll have to get this from your delicatessen) before you add them to the soup. Finally, if you prefer, rather than include pasta you can serve the soup over slices of toasted bread.

The soup is equally good with beans, fava beans, or lentils, and you can, if you prefer, use a different shape of pasta. Some prefer fregula.

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