If you’re like me (from New Jersey with a last name ending in a vowel), you very likely grew up eating “pasta fazool,” long before we found out that it’s actually “pasta fagioli”—technically pasta e fagioli or “pasta and beans.” Neapolitans, who have their own group of dialects, call it “fasule,” hence the Italian-American pronunciation.

Recipes vary from family to family, but, for the most part, they all include three core elements: pasta, white cannellini beans, and a tomato base. It’s hearty, peasant comfort food in its purest form. Full disclosure: For the first 17 or so years of my life, I didn’t love it. The main reason was I’d always been a pasta-and-red-sauce fiend. I’m pretty sure the first word that came out of my infant mouth was “macaroni,” and I felt that its bean-heavy cousin was a subpar imposter (impasta?) that didn’t really need to be a part of the bi-weekly dinner rotation.