Zuppa di Pane con Aglio e Pomodori Secchi Calabrese

The dish belongs to Calabria and to the wider southern Italian practice of cooking stale bread in a seasoned liquid, so that nothing of a loaf is wasted. It is a food of the household rather than the restaurant, built from bread, garlic, dried tomatoes and olive oil, which are the staples of the Calabrian pantry. The dried peppers known as cruschi, a product of the south, may be added to it.

A hearty Calabrian bread soup — stale bread torn into pieces and cooked in a garlic, sun-dried tomato and olive oil broth until the bread absorbs everything and becomes dense, soft and richly flavoured. Calabrian dried peppers (cruschi) can be added for an extraordinary sweet-pepper dimension. This is the Calabrian version of the broader southern Italian tradition of using stale bread as a thickening agent.

The soup is eaten hot, on its own or as the main dish of a plain meal, with a final thread of raw olive oil over the bowl. Its flavour is garlic, dried tomato and oil, with peperoncino giving a lasting heat and crumbled cruschi adding sweetness and a dry crunch against the soft bread. A dry, medium-bodied red or a young, unoaked white from the south suits it, because the oil and the bread's density call for acidity and little tannin to cut through them.