Although there is no authentic list of ingredients, Italian cooks say it's possible to tell where a minestrone was made by what it contains. You can generally expect a bowl of minestrone to have carrots, onion, celery and beans, but if the soup or zuppa was prepared in the northern part of the country, there will also be rice.

Along the Riviera, minestrones are seasoned with fresh herbs, and in southern Italy, they are made with tomatoes, garlic and pasta. Ligurian cooks on the Gulf of Genoa, where fresh basil is plentiful, use lots of vegetables in their minestrones and garnish them with pesto.

The word minestrone refers to a large or rich minestra, which describes a thick soup. According to culinary historians, ships in the port of Genoa once acted as floating soup kitchens and served minestrone to sailors who anchored alongside in small boats.