For the past couple of decades or more, the cold summer soup known as gazpacho has been widely celebrated as a near-perfect example of modern American cuisine at its best. Nothing could be more refreshing, more vitamin-rich, and healthy -- or so flavorful and yet so simple. It's been called a modern California classic, and in the highest expression of flattery, it's now imitated everywhere.

But beneath its stylish coat of contemporary fashion, gazpacho is clothed in antiquity. So ancient are its Mediterranean roots that no one can say exactly where it originated or what its name means. Even in this country, it was around long before California entered the Union; in The Virginia House-Wife, an 1824 collection of recipes that is considered the first bona fide American cookbook, author Mary Randolph presented "Gaspacha -- Spanish" as a salad.

Though it comes to our tables in a variety of forms, the contemporary dish is almost always a soup, a puree, or coarser blend of garden vegetables -- tomatoes and cucumbers foremost -- seasoned with garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and peppers. By most accounts, though, the original dish was made of stale, hard bread soaked to softness in water and then seasoned, much the same as now, with oil, vinegar, garlic, and salt.

John Mariani, in his Dictionary of American Food and Drink, says the word gazpacho "comes from the Arabic for 'soaked bread.'" In some Spanish dictionaries it's described as "an Andalusian dish made of bread, oil, vinegar, onions, and garlic." It was in the Andalusian region of southern Spain that the Romans and Moors left their imprint -- and it is there that gazpacho remains a familiar and popular dish.

And even now, in the traditional cookbooks of such Gulf Coast cities as Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida (where Spanish influences date back to the 16th century), you will find some old recipes for "gaspacha" or "gaspachee," a cold salad made with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and soaked hardtack or sea biscuit. What goes around comes around.

In the modern versions of this offering, salad has given way completely to soup, and the bread is more likely to be something like garlic croutons or crumbs sprinkled on top.

At the peak of summer garden season the cold soup that has become my favorite version of gazpacho is a hand-chopped medley of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, celery, sweet onions, and garlic. The seasonings include several vinegars and oils, salt and pepper, hot pepper sauce, and tomato juice.

And instead of incorporating soaked bread into the soup, I like to serve a side bowl of toasted oyster crackers seasoned with garlic, dill, and other flavorings.

This is a wonderfully refreshing way to get your recommended ration of vitamin-laced raw vegetables. It's also a great way to enjoy a summer lunch, and you can further enrich it with a fruit salad, a glass of tea or wine, and a tangy fruit sherbet or ice for dessert.

The Romans, Moors, and early Spaniards might not recognize our modern gazpacho as a culinary descendant of theirs, but it's hard to imagine that they -- or any lover of fresh, raw garden vegetables, from whatever age -- could be unimpressed with a summer soup as flavorful and distinctive as this.