Simone Ciattini's Panzanella, Illustrated

Panzanella is a Tuscan summer bread salad: peasant food, and a way of making stale bread palatable when there was little else to go with it. It's an extremely popular antipasto/first course at Simone Ciattini's La Baracchina, a trattoria in the hills just south of Florence.

Simone notes that, like many other bread-based dishes, for example ribollita or pappa al pomodoro, panzanella has become considerably richer since the end of the War, because people can now afford to add more of the other ingredients that support the bread. Considering that the other ingredients are tomatoes, cucumber and onion, this does make one think.

So what do you need for Panzanella?