It’s not really what you think it is…

In the states, when you hear the word ‘Bruschetta’, you think about toasted Italian bread with a tomato spread. But to think that way would be like thinking the word ‘Sandwich’ means two pieces of bread with ham, cheese and mayo. It’s actually a generic term, and there are all kinds of Bruschetta.

Making Bruschetta with Sausage and Stracchino Cheese at Villa Eddarella

Let’s learn how to say it…

Before I go any further, let’s get rid of a pet peeve of mine. We’ll learn how to pronounce it. Say BROO-SKET-TA. That’s right. It is not BRAH-SHEDA. Now say it again… BROO-SKET-TA. If you can roll that R a little, you are certainly doing well!

What exactly is it then?

Bruschetta is quite simply toast. The word comes from the Italian verb ‘brusciare’, meaning ‘to burn’… or ‘to toast’, if you will. Bruschetta is made by placing a piece of bread on a grill and turning it every few seconds until it is toasted. Of course, doing it with Italian bread makes it so much more than what we think of as toast! At that point, it is Bruschetta. What you put on top of it from that point forward is completely up to you.

A little Bruschetta History

They say it originates in our area — Central Italy. But in all honesty, it is just that name that originates there. Other areas of Italy have had it for ages, just with different names. After all, how does one figure out where toast was invented? However, the name Bruschetta stuck, and became accepted world-wide.

Originally Bruschetta was simply bread toasted over hot coals, then sprinkled with some olive oil and garlic (or salt). It was something you would have while having an Italian BBQ, or when tasting the new oil in the winter. This is how what we call ‘Garlic Bread’ originated. Over time, Bruschetta became an appetizer offered in restaurants, and as such, it expanded to be a ‘carrier’ of other appetizers.

Bruschetta with Porcini Mushrooms

The tomato/onion mixture we know of is one of these. Other popular ones are olive spread, porcini mushrooms, truffles, and much more. but if you are in Italy, and you ask simply for ‘Bruschetta’, you will get toasted Italian bread with oil and garlic to rubbed on it. If you were to ask for ‘Bruschette’ — Note the ‘e’ instead of ‘a’ at the end that makes it plural, you would most likely get a platter of several varieties of Bruschetta.  What we think of as Bruschetta would be ‘Bruschetta con pomodoro’, or ‘Bruschetta with tomatoes’. This fact may not hold true in touristy restaurants, since they have learned what the tourists expect.

Bruschetta is a Comfort Food

When I think of Bruschetta, I think of friends and family. It is about going down to the farmhouse on a cold, rainy night with Paola and friends. We would bring a bunch of bread, sausage and pancetta. We would start a fire in the old fireplace and grill the sausage and pancetta while making Bruschetta late into the night, laughing and eating. I would argue that just about any Italian you run into will have similar stories. Bruschetta is something to have with friends.

A Bruschetta Recipe:

The recipe below is a simple one that we do in our cooking classes for one of the appetizers. This is one of the more popular appetizers we do in our classes.

Bruschetta with Sausage and Stracchino (farmer cheese)

Ingredients

• 4 slices of Italian bread, cut in half
• 1 mild sausage (No fennel)
• 1 package of farmer cheese (Best if you can find stracchino cheese)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 F (275 C).

Peel the sausage and place in a bowl with 1/2 of the cheese. Blend together until smooth. Spread the mixture on the bread and place in the oven set to bake at). Watch the bruschetta carefully until golden brown. Serve warm.

I’ve been back in Los Angeles for a week now, and last night we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner for the first time since I got back.  This may not seem like a big deal, but for us it is always a tragedy.

The restaurant was Pomodoro in Woodland Hills.  I don’t want to say it is a bad place by American standards.  Actually, it is one of the better chains.  It is just that I was in Italy having the real thing a week ago, and by those standards, even the best place in the states simply stinks.

To give you an example of what I mean, let me go back about a month.  I was having a mega craving for roasted chicken and roasted potatoes.  In the states, we would generally call it Tuscan chicken, since it is generally a central Italian thing.  In Soriano, there is a place that makes roasted chicken and potatoes that are to die for, and this craving I was having needed to be addressed.

We decided to go to a place called Rosti in Westlake Village.  It is a tiny chain of just 4 restaurants.  We had been there in the past many times, and it had always been good.  In fact, it has always been the closest thing to real central Italian food we had ever eaten in the states.  The problem was that I was craving the real thing, not the ‘closest thing’.  I had the memory of Italy in my head, not the memory of a cheap imitation of Italy.

So we go to Rosti and order Caprese, followed by roasted chicken and potatoes.

The Caprese was a disaster.  But t wasn’t their fault… it was ours.  We had the memory of the real thing.  Caprese is pretty simple… it is hard to mess up.  I mean, Mozzarella, Tomato, basil, and oil… How hard can it be?  The problem is that the tomatoes we get here in L.A. taste like water, not tomatoes.  The mozzarella is never fresh, and even at best, it has absolutely no flavor. So in the end, you get something that looks like Caprese, but tastes like nothing.

Then came the main course.  The plate looked awesome!  There were my potatoes and my roasted chicken… Yummmmm!!!  That is, until my knife hit the chicken.  It didn’t feel right.  When I tasted it, I suddenly frowned and wondered how they got the chicken flavor out of the chicken.  Then I tried the potatoes, and I could feel the effects of the microwave used to heat them in my mouth.  I was devastated.  It was like craving an In n’ Out burger and settling for a Big Mac.  The problem was that this is as good as it gets.  The only way to satisfy the craving was 8.000 miles away.  Why can’t we make decent Italian food here?

Actually, it is our own fault.  We live in a move ‘em in and move ‘em out country. It starts with the farmers and ends with your meal.  The farmers mass produce everything, having to make a bigger tomato that gets to the market faster so they can grow more tomatoes.  Technology gets us bigger and cheaper tomatoes faster than ever. The price of this is flavor.  The chicken ranchers are replaced by chicken ‘mills’ that pump them full of hormones, giving us bigger chickens than ever.  They are big and cheap, so who will notice that they don’t actually taste like chickens?  

As we walk into restaurants they take our orders as soon as possible and deliver us our food as quickly as possible.  We mistake this for good and fast service, but it isn’t that at all.  In fact, they want us in and out quickly so they can get reuse your table as many times as possible that evening.  But food just doesn’t cook that fast, now does it?  So they have to precook as much as possible.  They can’t waste the time and energy to make things from scratch, so they buy the majority of what you eat in frozen form from a huge distributor.  Food is prepped quickly and reheated so that they can use fewer people in the kitchen with higher efficiency, all the while getting your order to you in lightning speed. 

The process is beautiful, and the only thing you lose along the way is flavor.   But even that is ok, since we are preconditioned to think that is the way it is supposed to be.

Then we wonder why the Italian food is so much better in Italy.  Go figure!