Bread and How to Eat It: A Cookbook

This is a book about bread: how to make it and how to eat it at every stage of its life cycle—from the James Beard Award-nominated owner of cult-favorite bakery Bread & Salt.

“What happens when an all-important subject like bread is tackled by one of the most talented chefs and one of the most engaging food writers in the country? Magic.” —Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything

Bread and How to Eat It is a timely revival of cucina povera (poverty cooking)—a bread-centric approach to meal prep that has fallen out of favor in American kitchens and that baker Rick Easton is hell-bent on restoring.

In these pages, home cooks will discover everything they need for baking their own bread (although Easton strongly recommends you frequent your local bakery, as people have for hundreds of years); things to make with bread (Bread Meatballs! Pasta with Bread Crumbs and Cauliflower!); things to eat with bread (Greens and Beans! Dried Chestnut and White Bean Soup!); and, of course, the ultimate guide to sandwiches you never knew you needed (Tuna with Harissa, Eggs, and Olives! Frittata, Artichoke, Pecorino, and Mint!).

A celebration of bread in all its forms—from fresh-baked to stale, from slices to crumbs—Bread and How to Eat It is an eminently accessible, riotously opinionated, and utterly indispensable cookbook for making the most of every loaf.

RICK EASTON is a baker and co-owner of Bread & Salt Bakery in Jersey City, New Jersey. He lives down the street from the bakery with coauthor Melissa McCart and their dog, Lucy. MELISSA McCART is a food journalist who has worked for Mark Bittman on Substack and Medium; and for Eater.com and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. You can also find her work in Bon Appétit, Saveur, The Washington Post, and elsewhere.