The Truffle's Ten Commandments

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When you enter the conference room of the Associazione della Stampa Estera, the foreign press association in Rome, the smell hits you. The room is permeated with the aroma of the tuber magnatum pico, or the truffle. In a glass bowl at the entrance are seventeen beautiful specimens of the white truffle from Alba and the bell jar only has to be lifted to imagine you are in a restaurant where the truffle is king.

Alba in Piemonte in the province of Cuneo is one of the two Italian truffle centers par excellence. (The other is Aqualagna in The Marches, the domain of the black truffle.) From September 21 to January 31, more than 4.000 truffle hunters roam the woods with their dogs in the hills around this medieval town.

Expensive truffles

The competition is fierce because there is a lot at stake. Last year the white truffle three euros or more per gram and now the price could be even higher because the dry and hot summer did not promote growth. Fortunately, it has rained in Piemonte in recent weeks, so the season can always be good.

International White Truffle Fair of Alba

We'll see on the 47^e Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo Bianco d'Alba, which will be held in Alba from October 7 to November 26, and which was festively presented to the foreign press last week.

The mayor, a regional deputy and the chairwoman of the truffle fair took the opportunity to promote other regional delicacies such as the nebbiolo and dolcetto wines, the hazelnuts whose soft and sweet gianduja is made and the crumbled cheese Castelmagno.

Risotto al tartufo for the foreign press

Cooked truffle

This year's special guest is Pope Francis, who will be presented with a beautiful truffle on October 22. In Alba they hope that this time things will go better than with his predecessor John Paul II. He once also got a beautiful copy, but his Polish cook didn't know what to do with it, so she just cooked it.

The 10 commandments of the truffle

It was also an opportunity to Decalog del Tartufo, de Ten Commandments of the Truffle, to recap:

The truffle is a fungus growing underground.
He can only be found with a dog.
It cannot be grown. (There are experiments going on with cultivated black truffles, but things are not going very well yet.)
It grows on the roots of certain trees, such as oak, willow, linden and poplar.
Its signature scent is the result of 120 volatile molecules.
It is harvested between September 21 and January 31, unless frost sets in earlier.
It should be consumed fresh and can be kept for a week at most.
Before that, he should be cleaned with a brush under a running tap, dried and laid to rest for 10 minutes.
It can be kept in the fridge, wrapped in kitchen paper in a closed jam jar.
The truffle is always eaten raw, cut extremely fine with a special truffle cutter.

truffle contest

I have fond memories of the press conference that was brightened up with a competition, with which you could win a beautiful truffle weighing 30 to 40 grams. Plus a super fast-looking truffle cutter designed by Dutch designer Ben van Berkel for Alessi: DeTruffle.

The question was, how much lamella, as the slices are called, could go out of a truffle shown by the presenter. To my happy surprise, my rather haphazard guess – 87 – turned out to be correct, so I could immediately invite a few fellow gourmets for a truffle paste as it should be.

The won white truffle and the truffle cutter

Recipe truffle pasta

Its preparation is actually very simple. It comes down to the quality of the ingredients.

Fresh pasta: tagliatelle all'uovo;
softly melted South Tyrolean Alpine butter with two unpeeled garlic cloves braised with it;
crushed salt flakes (Maldon fleur de sel);
and then of course the truffle cut out over the plates, for each commensal the prescribed seven grams pp and even a little more.

(And not the three or four discs that they sell you off in some restaurants and for which you also have to pay about twenty euros.)

As far as I'm concerned, no oil, and certainly no Parmesan or other cheese. Because nothing should break the delicate truffle harmony. And wine? Of course! But not immediately with the truffle, but only with the second course, to celebrate the good ending. Finally, when cutting the truffle, there are irrevocably leftovers and crumbs, making a soft fried egg with a full yolk a delicious luxury breakfast the next morning.