Bruschetta is grilled bread. That is all the word means. The tomatoes are a topping that came later, a happy marriage of charred bread and summer's best produce. Americans have turned it into something unrecognizable: cold, soggy bread buried under a mountain of tomatoes swimming in balsamic vinegar and enough garlic to ward off an army of vampires.

The garlic in proper bruschetta is not chopped, not minced, certainly not roasted into paste and spread like butter. You take a whole clove, cut it in half, and rub it once across the hot bread. The rough surface acts like a grater. What remains is perfume, not assault. The bread must be warm when you do this, or the garlic will not release its oils.

Your tomatoes must be ripe. Not supermarket tomatoes bred for shipping, hard and pink and tasteless. Ripe tomatoes, fragrant, yielding slightly when pressed, warm from the garden if you are fortunate. If your tomatoes are not in season, do not make this dish. Wait. There are other things to eat.