Bruschetta

"Bruschetta, A Tuscan dish designed to show off the new season's oil at the time of the olive harvest."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 110)

"Bruschetta. Toasted bread, often rubbed with garlic and drizzled with olive oil. Also schiena d'asino, soma d'aj in the south, and fettunta in Tuscany. Bruschetta has always been a way to salvage bread that was going stale by adding oil and seasonings. Sometimes the bread is entirely immersed in oil, but usually the oil is poured on the top after the bread is rubbed with a garlic clove. In recent years adding toppings, particularly chopped onions and tomatoes, has become popular in restaurants."
---The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink, John Mariani [Broadway Books:New York] 1998 (p. 45)