A Tuscan bread salad

In the Mediterranean and Middle East, as in any other culture where bread is the main victual, there are many dishes that give new life to stale bread using frugal but flavourful ingredients — herbs, onions, vegetables, oil, wine, vinegar.

Panzanella is one such dish, born of avoiding waste in times when famine and shortage were always around the corner. In the 1800s, Luigi Bicchierai, who ran an osteria (inn) near Florence, documented panzanella in his diaries