BRUSCHETTA

This cookbook is devoted to Italian toasts and flatbreads. It explains the history of bruschetta and the important place it occupies in Italian cooking. A chapter on bread is included, with helpful hints on baking the four most popular breads used for bruschetta: traditional pane pugliese, Teresa's pane pugliese, piadana and crescente. Bruschetta is in its simplest form freshly made bread, which is toasted, rubbed with garlic and while still hot, seasoned with coarse salt and extra virgin olive oil. It is traditionally eaten as a test of the new olive oil harvested each year. The recipes in this book range from the bruschetta al pomodoro, with tomatoes, basil, olives and garlic, to a variety of less obvious combinations, many handed down only by word of mouth and published here for the first time. These include lentils, celery and bayleaf, eggplant, rosemary and white wine, and clams with chilli pepper. Over 100 recipes are included.