Friselle Pugliesi

The summer food of Puglia: twice-baked rings of bread briefly dampened with water, then rubbed and heaped with ripe tomato, generous oregano, garlic, and olive oil, the crisp-soft rusk soaking up the juices, a southern Italian cousin of the Greek dakos

Origin: Puglia, Italy

From the journey of Oregano.

Friselle (or frese) are the twice-baked bread rusks of Puglia, the heel of Italy, dried hard so they keep for months: the bread of sailors, shepherds, and farmers, and of anyone who needed bread that would not spoil in the southern heat. To eat them, they are briefly dipped in water to soften, then topped, in summer, with the simplest and best of dressings: ripe tomatoes crushed over the surface, plenty of dried oregano, garlic, salt, and a flood of olive oil, the juices soaking down into the rusk. It is peasant food raised to perfection, and it belongs to the same Mediterranean family as the Greek dakos and the Italian bruschetta, with oregano as the herb that makes it sing. Cheap, ancient, and gloriously good, friselle are the taste of a Pugliese summer.

Ingredients

Base

  • 4 friselle (Pugliese twice-baked bread rusks)

Topping

  • 500 g very ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped or grated
  • 2 tbsp dried oregano
  • 1 clove garlic, halved
  • 5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp flaky sea salt
  • 8 leaves fresh basil (optional)

Method

  1. Hold each frisella briefly under cold running water, or dip it for a few seconds, until the surface softens but the rusk still has bite. Do not soak it to mush.
  2. Rub the cut side of the garlic clove over the dampened surface of each rusk.
  3. Crush or grate the ripe tomatoes and pile them generously over the friselle, letting the juices soak in.
  4. Scatter each one with a heavy pinch of dried oregano and flaky salt, drizzle generously with olive oil, and add a few torn basil leaves if you like.
  5. Leave for 2 to 3 minutes for the flavours to settle and the rusk to drink up the juices, then serve at once.

Notes

Authentic friselle are sold in Italian delis; in their absence, use any sturdy twice-baked rusk, or toast thick slices of country bread hard and dampen them lightly. The dish lives or dies by the tomatoes (use the ripest you can find) and the oregano. It is endlessly variable with the addition of olives, capers, cucumber, red onion, or tinned tuna, but the tomato-and-oregano version is the classic.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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