For this salad, it is always best to use bread that is stale- ideally a day or older. However, if your bread isn’t mature enough, you can still use it for the recipe. Just remember to lightly toast the bread in a pan or in the oven, and then proceed to use it. This extra step will help your bread get all nice and crisp, lending a nice contrast against the other fresh ingredients in the salad.  While toasting the bread, remember that you only need to get the edges slightly golden- you don’t want croutons- you want bread that has a little crusty texture on the outside, but is still soft on the inside.