Pane!

Pane Rustico

Only two groups of people make bread worth eating: the French and the Italians. I know that sounds overly opinionated but that's how I am: overly opinionated. I should mention that the word "bread" covers a lot of territory. For instance, bagels are (technically) bread, and bagels are definitely worth eating and they don't need to be made by French or Italian bakers. In fact, they probably shouldn't be made by those bakers. But I'm not writing about every kind of bread. I'm writing about table breads. Sandwich breads. Dipping and mopping up your plates bread.  And for those kinds of breads,  Italian and French breads are supreme.

A Vietnamese street vendor selling French bread baguettes.

It's not often I give a nod of approval to foods of the French variety -- I'll take Italian food over French food  any day -- but with bread, I have to give credit where credit is due. The French, in spite of them eating frogs and snails and dipping their French Fries in mayo, make a damn good loaf of bread.

By the way, want to know where to get some pretty good loaves or baguettes of French bread?  In Vietnamese restaurants, believe it or not.  You see, the French occupied Viet Nam for quite a few years and, while they did, some clever Vietnamese bakers learned the ways of French bread making.  Many Vietnamese immigrated to America after the Viet Nam War and they brought their French bread making skills with them.

Back to pane.

There are numerous kinds of Italian bread or pane. Personally, for me, the more rustic the better. My Uncle Tony used to work for an Italian bakery and grocery store back in the day. He would deliver Italian food stuffs and bread to Italian families.  My grandmother was someone who was on his route. That's how Uncle Tony met my Aunt Rosie. When I was growing up, participating in all those Sunday dinners at my grandparent's house, the bread was always fantastic! And it was always delivered by my Uncle Tony and then kept in my grandmother's washing machine. Hey! Where else would you keep the bread but in a washing machine? With that rubber seal around the lid of the washer, it kept the bread fresh for days.

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Italian breads have many uses: from mopping the sauce off your plate, to making meatball, sausage-and-peppers, cold cuts, and other kinds of delicious sangwiches, to dipping in olive oil and red wine vinegar or scooping out bruschetta from a big bowl, Italian pane is the best!

My cyber goomba back home, Johnny Meatballs -- back home being the great state of New Jersey for me -- is a meatball impresario. He sells his mouth-watering meatballs on a big (and genuine) Italian roll to thousands of lucky Jersey peeps. Yeah. When it comes to meatball sangwiches, size does matter!

Bread making goes way back in Italy. Back as far as the Romans and that's a ways back. Because of that, Italians have had thousands of years to perfect their bread making skills and perfect it they have. Generally, Italian bread is simple as breads go. Certainly the table breads. But don't let that simplicity fool you. It's delicious in the extreme. Besides, anyone can make things complicated. Genius is making them simple. And Italian breads are pure genius in their simplicity.

Can you even imagine sitting down to a Sunday sauce Italian dinner without bread? I can't. Nor would I want to. The bread on the table is the cornerstone of a great Italian meal and should never be absent from those dinners. Capiche?