Pane Toscano

Pane Toscano contains no salt. This is not an oversight. This is not poverty cooking. This is intentional.

Tuscany produces some of the most intensely flavored cured meats and cheeses in Italy: finocchiona, prosciutto Toscano, pecorino. These are salty, assertive foods. The bread must step back to let them speak. A salted bread would compete; this bread completes. It absorbs the juices of ripe tomatoes in panzanella, soaks up the broth in ribollita, provides the neutral foundation for fettunta drizzled with new olive oil.

Americans taste this bread alone and find it bland. They are missing the point entirely. Pane Toscano is not meant to be eaten alone. It is meant to be eaten with something, always with something. The absence of salt makes room for everything else.

The biga, a pre-ferment left to develop overnight, creates the complex flavor that salt would otherwise provide. Without this step, you have plain flour and water. With it, you have bread worth making.