![]() ![]() So, if you have tomatoes, but no stale bread, know that this is no barrier to greatness. On the seventh day, the stale bread would be used up in this soup.” While I didn’t try it with fresh bread, Daniel Gritzer over at Serious Eats has, and didn’t notice any difference, apart from the fact that the fresh sort was quicker to make. Maccioni remembers that pappa al pomodoro was traditionally a dish eaten on Fridays, not only because it was vegetarian, but because “bread made on Saturday morning was supposed to last for seven days. One thing I think is important is to give the bread time to break down and become one with the tomatoes – Del Conte’s soup has an almost custardy consistency, rather than just feeling like a bowl of soggy bread, which can happen if you just chuck it in at the end and stir a bit. I love adding tomatoes to a lot of my dishes and this gives a great flavor and texture boost. There’s no need to buy an Italian loaf for the purpose, unless you’d really like to or to waste the crusts by discarding them – I leave them on in Oliver’s recipe and find that, once sufficiently softened, I rather like the texture and flavour. These come in handy when you want something fresh but still quick. Most recipes simply call for stale bread – though you’ll get a much better consistency if you use “country-style bread” (ie, not a sliced tin loaf, but something with more structure). Use stale bread, and keep the crusts on, says Jamie Oliver. Jamie Oliver, meanwhile, uses a mixture of tinned tomatoes and roasted fresh cherry tomatoes in Jamie’s Italy. So does Claire Thomson in her new book Tomato, though he purees them and she leaves them whole. ![]() Indeed, Gianluca Paoli of the Florentine trattoria Coco Lezzone, whose recipe is included in Lori De Moor and Jason Lowe’s book Beaneaters & Bread Soup, calls for tinned tomatoes. The Italian food writer Stefano Arturi tells me that nowadays this dish is barely seen in high summer in his home of Lucca in Tuscany, where they favour panzanella in the heat, saving pappa al pomodoro for tinned tomato season. In fact, if you then slow simmer said tomatoes, as Maccioni, the Silver Spoon and Del Conte recommend, they don’t even need to be in peak flavour, though if you simply cook them until the bread breaks down, as in the River Cafe and Bareham recipes, you’ll need really stupendous fruit. That said, seeing as most recipes then call for you to core, peel, seed and chop ( Alvaro Maccioni’s Mamma Toscana, Lindsay Bareham’s Big Red Book of Tomatoes and the Silver Spoon), or even puree them (the River Cafe Classic Italian Cook Book and Del Conte herself), they don’t need to be in pristine condition. Add a bit of zing and colour to your salads with. Tomatoes are the mainstay of the dish – as Del Conte notes, “this is a soup to be made during the summer, when you can get really good tomatoes” (though she concedes tinned can be substituted, if necessary). Add a bit of zing and colour to your salads with these tasty cherry tomatoes. Claire Thomson’s pappa al pomodoro starts with tinned whole tomatoes.
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