Tracy > wrote:

> For me, pasta e fagioli does not have any tomato product. It's a bean
> and pasta soup. My mother used black eyed peas. I have been unable to
> find a recipe quite like hers and it's too late now to ask her how she
> made it. Our Italian roots are via Naples. I don't know if that makes a
> difference in how it's made....

Pasta e fagioli, pasta e ceci, pasta e piselli, pasta e lenticchie all
very often contain tomato products. All, by definition, contain some
pasta ans some kind of legume(s), though, in Italy, probably never
black-eyed peas, of course. Minestrone, on the other hand, does not
necessarily contain legumes or pasta - there are any number of recipes
that omit either and not a few that omit both. For example, there are
versions with orzo (barley, not pasta) and potatoes, and with no pasta
or legumes.

Victor