This bean stew is perfect for vegetarians and vegans but the writer suggests that despite it quoting dried beans which have to be soaked for several hours prior to cooking, canned ones can be substituted. Likewise, if you’re a meat eater, chorizo sausage makes a fantastic addition.

This is a recipe typical of Liguria, the strangely arch-shaped region in the north west of Italy (capital: Genoa), in whose gulf (the Gulf of Spezia) Shelley, the romantic English poet, drowned in 1822.