Minestrone is an Italian soup, thick with vegetables — tomato, beans, carrot, cabbage, onion, whatever is in the kitchen — and small pieces of pasta in it, or sometimes rice. There is no one official list of ingredients; that is part of the point. Italian families and restaurants each have their own pot. English borrowed the name as it is, so we still say minestrone, not a translated name. It is homely food, the kind you eat with bread. On a menu it sounds a little special only because the name is Italian; in Italy it is ordinary everyday soup. The name itself hints that this is a “big,” hearty minestra, a simpler Italian word for soup.