Focaccia Day

The story

Focaccia is Italy's dimpled flatbread, golden with olive oil and often studded with rosemary, coarse salt, or soft onions. The dough is enriched with oil, stretched in a pan, and poked with fingertips so puddles of oil collect and bake into a crisp-tender crumb. Liguria's focaccia is especially famous—thin, salty, and irresistible with a morning cappuccino—while thicker versions elsewhere hold vegetables, cheese, or olives. It is snack, breakfast, and sandwich bread in one, always best warm from the oven.

Baking focaccia teaches patience: a long rise builds flavor, and generous oil is not optional but essential. Bakeries display sheets cut into squares that disappear by midday. On Focaccia Day, mix a soft dough, let it rise until billowy, dimple it deeply, and bake until the top is golden and the bottom crisp.

Tear it with friends, dip it in more oil, or split it for sandwiches. Celebrating focaccia is celebrating Italian bread at its most inviting—simple dough transformed by olive oil and heat into something you cannot stop eating.