Better bread in southern Italy?
 

Although Italy and Italian food are my favorites, I've been disappointed in most of the bread served in restaurants there. Really, I think most good Italian restaurants in the Northeast US have better bread.

But it dawned on me that most of my travels in Italy have been Rome and northward. Maybe I'm missing something in the south. Is the bread better there?

Funny you should post this today. I just returned from Italy. And I totally agree about the bread.
You know what's missing from the majority of the dinner breads served in Italy? It's salt. That's why it is so tasteless to my American palate. Great texture, but no taste-- right?

I find it's MUCH better in Puglia. Pana pugliese is crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle, and nothing like the lumps of rubber they give you further north. It's one of the things Puglian food is famous for.

And the Brits on that survey said the Italians had the best cuisine....

I have to agree; the bread did seem better in the south of Italy. We visited Basilicata and the bread was much tastier, compared to Florence or Rome.

MY

According to my bread books, Tuscan bread is distinguished by the fact that it has no salt.

In all fairness, bread is not really a big Italian thing,not like France, look at the carbs available, all types of pasta's, gnochis and risotto. Here in my beloved Piedmont with its superb regional cugina, I won't touch the local bread, its white, tasteless and goes hard after one day - we make our own whole wheat bread at home. However if you can find real artisan Tuscan bread it is very good, its the only item in food I will concede to Toscano over Piemonte!

Some of the country's best pastas are also made in Puglia. I think it is a great wheat-growing area.

The last time I was there (2002) I experienced the same disappointment with the bread up north in Tuscany. Turns out, from what the waiter told me, that the reason that the Tuscans don't use salt in their bread is because for many years (don't ask me when!) they had to do without salt because the salt was taxed. So, although today they CAN get salt they choose not to, I guess to stick it to 'the man' :) In Rome, however, the bread had salt and it was delish!!

j_999_9 wrote:
"Really, I think most good Italian restaurants in the Northeast US have better bread."

Compared to Rome, I couldn't agree more.

Earlier today I was in Boston and an Italian-American was asking me about my trip and the food.
I told him the Italian bakeries in Boston and Rhode Island when it came to bread had Rome beat hands-down. Regards, Walter

Amusing thread as I soooo love the bread in the various areas of Italy.
And my dear Rome born and bred SIL loves the USA but if you ask him if there is anything he really misses his answer is always "the bread in Rome". So different strokes for different folks" lol.

I agree that bread in Southern Italy is better, not by much, than the ones up in the North. We were in Puglia late last year and noticed that - i.e. not as cardboard-tasting as the ones in, say, Tuscany. Their bread goes really well with the cheese that is popular in the region, and is very very good when fresh, the buratta. Not to forget the good olive oil that their bread complements. Puglia is also the largest olive-oil producing region in Italy. I found theri olive oil to be slight more "oily", yet more lush and fruity, than the ones up north.

Since somebody mentioned pasta, Puglia is home to orrochiete, the ear-shaped pasta. It's pretty much a staple in any restaurant and my favorite version is when it is simply sauced with chickpeas and some chopped fresh tomatoes.

Puglia is known as the garden of Italy, as it has very luscious soil and isn't mountainous, unlike much of Italy, so is better suited to arable farming. And the glorious sunshine helps of course. They grow most of Italy's durum wheat (for pasta), olives, tomatoes and a whole other bunch of stuff . The local 'cucina povera' is fabulous, and their antipasti knocks the socks off the northern regions, IMO.

I had some of the best bread in Basilicata from simple local bread bakeries. I also had some outstanding bread in Sicily.

It's in Tuscany that there's a style of bread without salt. I did not find unsalted bread in other parts of Italy. I know some people hated the unsalteed Tuscan bread. But I liked it when made into crostini with salty toppings or for sandwiches with salty cheese salty meats like hams or mortadella.

In general, I think it's harder to find really outstanding bread in restaurants. The best breads were the ones bought directly from a bakery for a picnic or for meals in someone's home.

The worst bread I had in Italy in reecent years was in Varenna on Lake Como. It was soft and reminded me or very bad "Italian" fake bread in American supermarkets (before supermarkets started carrying high quality crusty bread from good bread bakeries). This awful bread was served at every restaurant meal in various places during my short stay. I thought it was some strange local style of bread, and I couldn't get beyond the first bite. But then, just before my train ride to my next destination, I stopped in a food store to get food for the ride, and when I asked for a sandwich, the woman asked me (in Italian) whether I wanted soft bread. Her tone seemed to assume that I did, and that the question was just to confoirm. But i said I wanted hard bread. It turns out that in Varenna there really was "normal" crusty bread, and it was good--nothing soecial, and not nearly as good as the breads in the south, but just fine.

P.S. I STRONGLY doisagree with the person who said that bread is "not a big thing" in Italy. Maybe that's true in the region that this person is always pushing, but it is not true in central and southern Italy. Bread is an essential part of a meal for many southern Italians, and poor people in tiny towns and rural areas recongize and appreciate good bread. Some very simple country meals consist of not too much more than bread.

Well, that's good to know. Here in the US, I tend to judge restaurants on their bread. I'll sit down, order, and when I try the bread basket if the bread isn't good, I tend to lose hope for the rest of my meal. Occasionally I'm proven wrong, but usually better restaurants have better bread!!

I'll keep this in mind in Italy lol

What a great thread! I completely agree with you. The bread we've had in Italy is amost completely tasteless. I thought it was just me and that we were choosing not-so-hot restaurants. DH and I haven't traveled much in southern Italy but we plan to next year. Now I have something to look forward to!!

A mentioned in a post above, Tuscan bread is saltless, a habit formed in the days when salt was taxed (a common form of head tax throughout the world for hundreds of years - remember Gandhi's salt march?). Look closely at those small shops with a big "T" outside - they are licensed to sell tobacco products (still heavily taxed) and salt - some even keep a packet or two of salt on the shelves. Most tourists are disappointed with Tuscan bread because it comes with tourist breakfasts which are not a native dish (try a sweet pastry with a coffee or something stronger) and for which unsalted bread from the day before is totally unsuited. However, most Tuscans consume large quantities of fresh bread with their evening meat dishes where the sauce and salt balances the bread perfectly. Restaurants with pizza ovens frequently provide plain, freshly-cooked pizza crust in lieu of bread. As with bread, the idea is to tear pieces off for consumption with second courses, and sometimes as a replacement for a fork.

The only place in Italy where I remember eating any bread other than the standard tasteless white bread was in northeastern Italy, near the Austrian border. The Austrians are famous for their selection of whole grained bread, and the influence can be felt in nearby Italy.

To try truly delicious bread in Tuscany, go to a bakery or super market and get warm schacciata. Flat, with olive oil and salt... so delicious. Saltless Tuscan bread is best consumed in any of the dishes that it is the basis of: crostini, panzanella, pappa al pomodoro and more. But if you are used to eating the very good artisanal breads in the US or France, Tuscan bread, straight, isn't going to thrill you.

I don't remember disliking bread in Tuscany, but the bread in Umbria is definitely saltless and in my opinion tasteless.

But at least the crust was good and "crusty"!!