A hearty, carby comfort bowl with optional crumbled sausage

At a wedding recently, I sat near two old friends talking about 1998, the year they drove all over Italy in a white Fiat Ducato van. Farther down the table, someone was talking about removal men swinging a wardrobe through a fifth-floor window. I listened in on both conversations, fading one out when the other was more interesting. At a certain point, though, the van chat turned to beans and sausages, so I tuned in.

There was some back and forth about which city they were in – Novara in Piemonte, Mantova in Lombardia, or Treviso in Veneto – before the reminiscing concentrated on dinner. Having arrived at the venue and set everything up, they were told there was only one option – sausages and beans – and that when the two of them pointed out that they didn’t eat meat, it was suggested they simply pulled them out. Being so hungry as to be flexible, they agreed, only to find that when the dish arrived the sausages were sbriciolata (crumbled) through the beans. At which point, both of them seemed to turn to me as if they wanted confirmation that crumbling sausage into beans was a ridiculous and selfish thing to do. Which, of course, it is, if it’s the only option for a mixed crowd.