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Fettunta (Toasted bread with olive oil)
Preparation time: 10 minutes.
Cooking time: 10 minutes.
Bread.
Extra-virgin olive oil.
Garlic.
Salt.
Black pepper.
This dish is generally associated with the month of november, when the olives
have been gathered and the oil is newly pressed. Obviously it is eaten all
year round, but in other seasons in lacks that characteristic pungent flavour
of the new oil. Cut the bread about a centimetre thick, grill well on both
sides and rub one side generously with a clove of garlic. You just have to
forget the unpleasant effect on your breath, if you are going to enjoy this
properly: semel in anno licet insanire, as Dante once said, "everyone
can go mad at least once a year".
Place the slices on a large serving platter and drizzle the oil over them.
Season with salt and pepper and eat while still hot. In the summer you can
top the crostini with chopped tomatoes, or tomato sauce. In winter, fettunta
is the basis of a traditional soup known, somewhat inexplicably, as "Lombard
soup": place the slice of bread in a soup bowl and cover with boiled cannellini
beans, adding a little of the thick liquid in which they were cooked. Season
with oil, salt and pepper.
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