Pan Bagnat

Pan bagnat is salade niçoise in sandwich form, and it is the finest picnic food I know. The name means bathed bread in the Niçoise dialect, which tells you everything about how it is made. The bread drinks olive oil until it softens. The tomatoes release their juice. Everything melds into one thing.

This is a sandwich you make ahead because it demands time. Two hours minimum. Overnight if you can manage it. The pressing transforms it. When you unwrap it, the bread will have compressed around the filling, the layers fused together, the flavors married in ways that fresh assembly cannot replicate.

Start with the tomatoes. They should be summer tomatoes at their peak, heavy and fragrant before you slice them. If the tomatoes are not ripe, wait for another day or another sandwich. Everything else follows from that. Good bread, honest olive oil, tuna packed in oil rather than water. The anchovy is traditional and I encourage it. It adds a depth that you will miss without it, even if you cannot name what is missing.