Pa amb tomàquet (Bread Rubbed with Tomato and Oil)
A slice of grilled bread rubbed with garlic and ripe tomato, generously drizzled with olive oil and salted. Three ingredients, and all the sun of the Mediterranean in one bite.
A slice of grilled bread rubbed with garlic and ripe tomato, generously drizzled with olive oil and salted. Three ingredients, and all the sun of the Mediterranean in one bite.
You want to know the secret? There isn't one. A slice of bread you put over the fire, a garlic clove you rub, a ripe tomato you crush on it until the bread reddens, the oil, the salt — done! That's what we ate standing up, between canvases, without plate or manners. The poorest of dishes and the happiest: that's my cooking.
- •Country bread — slices (crispy base)
- •Ripe tomato — one per slice (juicy garnish)
- •Garlic — one clove (rubbed flavor)
- •Olive oil — generous (binder and taste)
- •Salt — a pinch (seasoning)
Pa amb tomàquet (Bread Rubbed with Tomato and Oil)
A slice of grilled bread rubbed with garlic and ripe tomato, generously drizzled with olive oil and salted. Three ingredients, and all the sun of the Mediterranean in one bite.
Why this dish? Bread rubbed with tomato and drizzled with olive oil is the universal snack of Mediterranean Spain — from the bistro in Barcelona to the Andalusian tavern. Simple, popular, shared: exactly the spirit of the informal tables Picasso loved, in Paris as on the Côte d'Azur.
You want to know the secret? There isn't one. A slice of bread you put over the fire, a garlic clove you rub, a ripe tomato you crush on it until the bread reddens, the oil, the salt — done! That's what we ate standing up, between canvases, without plate or manners. The poorest of dishes and the happiest: that's my cooking.
Ingredients (period version)
- Country bread — slices (crispy base)
- Ripe tomato — one per slice (juicy garnish)
- Garlic — one clove (rubbed flavor)
- Olive oil — generous (binder and taste)
- Salt — a pinch (seasoning)
Ingredients
- Country bread — 4 thick slices (base)
- Ripe tomatoes — 2 (garnish)
- Garlic clove — 1 (flavor)
- Extra virgin olive oil — 4 tbsp (finish)
- Fleur de sel — to taste (seasoning)
Method
- Grill the bread slices until golden and crispy.
- Rub each slice with a cut garlic clove while still warm.
- Cut the tomatoes in half and rub them onto the bread, pressing to soak the crumb with pulp and juice.
- Drizzle generously with olive oil.
- Sprinkle with fleur de sel and serve immediately, to eat with your hands.
How it was made : Pa amb tomàquet (Catalan) or pan con tomate was born as a peasant trick to soften and enjoy stale bread. It is, par excellence, a 'post-1492' dish: the tomato, from the Americas, only spread into Spanish cuisine from the 17th-18th centuries — unthinkable in the Middle Ages, but completely at home in Picasso's time.
The contemporary twist : Cut into geometric soldiers and arranged like a checkerboard on a board, optionally topped with an anchovy or a shaving of ham — an edible 'collage' to nibble.
Sources : Tradition catalane et méditerranéenne du pa amb tomàquet
Pablo Picasso · Charactorium