Zuppa Alla Pavese Recipe

This soup, associated with the ancient Lombardian agricultural and university town of Pavia (Albert Einstein once lived there), is utterly simple. I had a particularly good version on day at Il Tastevin, a restaurant in Vigevano, about 15 miles northwest of Pavia, and the proprietor, Maurizio Barone, was kind enough to share his recipe with me. "It is a very 'poor' plate," he wrote when he sent it to me, "and easy to make, but diners like it very much."Adapted from “The Country Cooking of Italy” by Colman Andrews (to be published in the Fall of 2011 by Chronicle Books).