Horace's Chickpeas, Leeks and Pasta Soup

So tonight I'm setting up a beautiful chickpea and leek pasta soup based on a recipe I found in Anna Del Conte's excellent book Portrait of pasta. This is a great cookbook because it has a section of historical recipes and they've all been great, and it's fun to read about dishes that some historical figures might've eaten.

So the chickpea and leek pasta comes from Horace's Book I, Satire VI, Non Quia, Maecenas. It's a charming poem, Horace's Satires are available for free download from Project Gutenberg, which is one of the best sites on the Internet. So in this Satire, Horace is talking to the rich Maecenas, whoever that was, and says that although Maecenas is rich, he is content with his life. Horace talks about his father:

If I have lived unstained and unreproved
(Forgive self-praise), if loving and beloved,
I owe it to my father, who, though poor,
Passed by the village school at his own door,
The school where great tall urchins in a row,
Sons of great tall centurions, used to go,
With slate and satchel on their backs, to pay
Their monthly quota punctual to the day,
And took his boy to Rome, to learn the arts
Which knight or senator to HIS imparts.
Whoe'er had seen me, neat and more than neat,
With slaves behind me, in the crowded street,
Had surely thought a fortune fair and large,
Two generations old, sustained the charge.
Himself the true tried guardian of his son,
Whene'er I went to class, he still made one.
Why lengthen out the tale? he kept me chaste,
Which is the crown of virtue, undisgraced
In deed and name: he feared not lest one day
The world should talk of money thrown away

and then goes on to talk about how he whiles his days away in the Forum and the Circus, and sometimes winds down back at his house to a dish of chickpeas (vetch,) leeks and pasta. (Though I don't get how if his father was poor, he could afford to have sent him with a group of slaves behind him. But anyway.)

The leek and chickpea is what I will have tomorrow. It's a tasty dish. Here's an adaptation of Del Conte's .. adaptation of Horace? I use a slow cooker for all my beans --- I can't have beans without the slow cooker now

Horace Chickpea and Leek Pasta

You will need 1/2 box or more pasta, 1-2 leeks, 2-3 tomatoes, 6 ounces chickpeas, 1-2 bay leaves, parsley, salt, pepper, and 1 stick of celery. Soak chickpeas overnight, change the water once, drain and rinse (I do this in my slow cooker bowl.) Cut the white part of the leek into small rings. Add the leek, tomatoes, chopped celery, bay leaf, salt, and lots of ground pepper to the soaked chickpeas. Cover, boil, lower and simmer --- I slow cook on low all day, Del Conte says simmer 3 hours. Do not uncover.

When the chickpeas are tender and you're ready to eat, boil the pasta, drain, and fry it in olive oil. Add the fried pasta and oil to the soup and cook until the pasta is tender. Add the chopped parsley and serve with grated parmegiano on the side.