Minestrone, which when translated literally means ‘big soup‘, is a seasonal soup that can be made of whatever ingredients are at hand. The only fixed characteristics of minestrone are that it should contain pasta and plenty of delicious stock. As such, it is to be expected that a dish so undefinable would have myriad different variations and this, of course, is true. However, tomatoes are unlikely to be found high up on the list of ingredients that really make minestrone sing.