This morning I woke up thinking about bruschetta. A couple weeks ago I took a Julia and Julia cooking class where we made a delicious bruschetta and I woke up thinking about it. But then, I started thinking about crostini and I got to wondering… “wait, what is the difference?”
Both crostini and bruschetta are typically made on bread with great toppings and a lot of times they both use olive oil, and of course saltandpepper. So, what’s the difference?
First, let’s start with Bruschetta. And, let’s start with the name. I have always pronounced bruschetta as broo—shee—tt—uh, but that is incorrect. The true pronunciation is broo—skeh—tah. Now for the food! After a bit of research, I came across the website www.thedailymeal.com/what-bruschetta This site explains that the toasty breads started off as somewhat of the original garlic breads. Bread slices were toasted with olive oil generally to celebrate the “commemoration of the olive harvest in Tuscany.” The breads were rubbed with some good garlic, and if they were in season were topped with chopped tomato.
The dailymeal says that nowadays bruschetta has turned into a canvas for all sorts of culinary inspiration with chefs topping it with anything from cheeses to eggplant. And such is the reason for my conundrum.
Crostini is an Italian word for “little toasts” according to the website www.thewisegeek.com/what-is-crostini.htm . Each toast is a canvas for appetizers including cheese and tomato, thin steaks, salmon, or fig. So, how is this different from the current trend in bruschetta?
As far as I can tell the true bruschetta is more of an antipasto on top of a grilled bread that requires olive oil and garlic rub, whereas, the crostini is a canvas for anything and does not require the olive oil or garlic. The garlic and oil rub will make the bruschetta softer and the crostini is more crispy like a bigger type of crouton. (which it has been used for). In my experience a crostini is smaller, a little snack bite whereas the bruschetta is a larger piece of bread sliced on the diagonal. The crostini definitely more crunchy.
And, Now we know! Thanks for reading!
add some salt and pepper 