There is only one answer to the question of the best way to make bruschetta and that would be to make it as it has been made traditionally in Tuscany for two thousand years. Take a slice of the dry salt-free Tuscan bread, rub it vigourously with garlic and fry it in olive oil. Although it really is still frying, cover it with finely chopped tomato. As very simple as that! That is how to make bruschetta. If you would like a demonstration, watch Julie performing it in "Julie and Julia".

The Tuscan bread is salt totally free because salt within the bread keeps it moist and there is really a danger of it turning mouldy. The result is really a rather bland bread that dries out quickly. Much, therefore, of Tuscan cooking concentrates on using the bread in different recipes and making it additional interesting. Bruschetta is really a fine example of this. It is a peasant food, effortlessly prepared and using ingredients that any Tuscan will need to hand.

This can be a daily food, unlike the fetta unta, the slice of hard, slightly toasted bread anointed with the very first olive oil of the first pressing of the harvest. It can be a great honour to be present at a meal with a Tuscan family where fetta unta is served. This isn't at all how you can make bruschetta, even though you can find some foreigners who confuse the two.
Bruschetta, however, has expanded beyond its original meaning. Every little restaurant owner in Italy now believes that he knows the best way to make bruschetta and it is provided every day on the menu. The peasant dish, however, has taken on a new elegance. While the basis in Italy remains a slice of bread, rubbed with garlic and fried in olive oil, there have been a number of variations on the theme of chopped tomato. Basil is added, chopped green peppers are added, olives are added. All are delicious and still in keeping with the tradition.

Outside Italy the bruschetta has been adopted as a global food, a lot as pizza took over the entire world several decades back. You locate coffe houses in London, milk bars in New Jersey, bistros in Paris, street stalls in Malta, tearooms on the Island of Skye, which all claim to know how you can make bruschetta. Some of them do know exactly the best way to make bruschetta. The bread is saturated in olive oil, it has clearly been well-rubbed with garlic, and even an elderly Tuscan farmer would recognise the display of vegetables sizzling on top, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, rocket, asparagus. He could be surprised at the addition of chorizo or parma ham but not necessarily shocked.
Other so-called bruschettas don't pass the test. A slice of white bread, toasted, with several vegetables along with a drizzle of olive oil, just isn't a bruschetta. It is a slicce of white bread toasted.... Even less so can be a slice of bread toasted with cheese on top. That just isn't how you can make bruschetta; which is how to make toasted cheese. And, most certainly, the bread with different fruits on top that one sometimes sees described as bruschetta - no, no, strawberries do not go with garlic and with out garlic, it just isn't a bruschetta. Do whatever you like, within reason, but if you desire to know the best way to make bruschetta, begin with a slice of bread, rub it with garlic, fry it in olve oil, spread on chopped tomatoes as it is frying - that's the only way to make bruschetta.