Some people may bite into a fresh watermelon slice and think it’s the taste of summer, reminiscing about those sunny days spent under the shade of a backyard tree. Others might imagine the taste of Rocket Pops as synonymous with summer, sparking memories of racing up the beach to catch the ice cream truck springing to mind (here’s how Bomb Pops became a Fourth of July classic). Celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis is staying true to her Italian roots when it comes to her favorite summertime snack, proclaiming in a TikTok video that pane e pomodoro as the most acceptable treat for that time of year.
De Laurentiis makes her version of pane e pomodoro with only five ingredients: Italian rustic bread, garlic cloves, olive oil, canned tomatoes, and salt. She begins by toasting the bread, then quickly rubbing it with a garlic clove while the bread is still warm, allowing the garlic to absorb as much as possible. After the garlic comes a sprinkle of olive oil. Not enough to drown the bread, just enough to cover it. Then, De Laurentiis opts for corbara pomodorini canned tomatoes from her Giadzy brand, mashing the small tomatoes and rubbing them on the toasted bread. From here, she tops the snack with a hearty dusting of her Giadzy lemon and oregano salt and finishes off with a celebratory bite.
Pane e pomodoro is an Italian classic
Directly translated to “bread and tomato,” this dish was the creation of commoners in the Italian countryside looking to put every scrap of food to good use. Pane e pomodoro was often made with stale bread and ripe tomatoes, the bread sometimes softened with water and doused in olive oil to eliminate unpleasant textures. De Laurentiis may prefer Italian rustic bread, but the variety changes depending on which region of Italy you ask. While similar in ingredients to a bruschetta, pane a pomodoro is fundamentally different, a recipe so simple that it didn’t need to be written down (here’s an all-star tomato bruschetta recipe, in case you’re looking for it).
Pane e pomodoro has long been thought of as an “Italian medicine,” one with healing properties similar to that of Italian Penicillin Soup. It’s most commonly served as part of the Italian “merenda,” a small yet hearty snack in between lunch and dinner time. De Laurentiis makes her pane e pomodoro with canned tomatoes, but the traditional recipe calls for fresh tomatoes sliced in half and rubbed on the bread (which doesn’t always need to be toasted). Italians from Liguria sometimes serve pane e pomodoro with basil, while residents of Puglia follow in De Laurentiis’ footsteps and prefer a bit of oregano. One loaf of bread and a can of tomatoes, or a tomato plant in the backyard, can mean you’ll have pane a pomodoro as a true Italian merenda for weeks to come.
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