Pasta e fagioli or pasta fagioli, meaning "pasta and beans", is a traditional meatless Italian dish. Like many other Italian favorites including pizza and polenta, the dish started as a peasant dish, due to being composed of inexpensive ingredients. Today it can be widely found, even in restaurants that do not specialize in Italian cuisine. It is often pronounced pasta fazool in the United States.
Pasta fagioli is commonly made using cannellini beans or borlotti beans and some type of small pasta such as elbow macaroni or ditalini. The base is generally olive oil, garlic, minced onion, and spices, along with stewed tomato or tomato paste. Some variations do not include tomatoes at all, and are made from a broth. Modern restaurant recipes may be vegetarian, or include an Italian meat such as prosciutto.
The recipe varies greatly based on the region or town in which it is prepared, depending on available ingredients. The consistency of the dish can vary, as some renditions fall clearly in the soup category, usually because the tomato was left out, while others are much thicker.
The word for "beans" varies in different Italian dialects, e.g. fagioli ([faˈdʒɔːli]) in standard Italian, [faˈsuːl] in Neapolitan, and [faˈsuːlu] in Sicilian. Pastafazoola, a 1927 novelty song by Van and Schenck, capitalizes on the Neopolitan pronunciation in the rhyme, "Don't be a fool, eat pasta fazool."[1] The Dean Martin song 'That's Amore' also rhymes "When the stars make you drool, joos-ta like pasta fazool, that's amore".
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