Bread and Tomato Soup

Stale bread is never wasted in peasant cookery; the Tuscans serve it as crostini, or more nourishingly, as the thickening in this sturdy summer soup. The practice of using bread as thickening goes back to medieval times, but it must be good bread, ciabatta if you can get it, or stale white farmhouse, or best of all, Fleur Kelly’s Roman Loaf. Using sliced bread will produce a sticky, sloppy mush.