Italian hearth bread

Although pizza may be the best-loved product of the Italian baker’s oven, it could soon be challenged by the focaccia. Both are hearth breads, originally cooked on the oven floor before the chief event of the day, the baking of the really big loaves. The French version of focaccia, fougasse.

Focaccia was the baker’s hors d’oeuvre. As soon as the fire had been raked out, he popped these inside the door to cook quickly while the temperature of the ov