The market · Mushrooms · Southern Europe
White truffles
Tuber magnatum, the Alba truffle: pale and knobbly, with a heady scent of garlic, honey and damp earth that cooking destroys. It's only ever shaved raw over something warm.
garlicky · honeyed · heady
Goes with
Knowing it
- Where to buy
- From specialist merchants, at a price set week by week. Smell it before you pay, and press it: firm, not spongy. Most come from Piedmont, but also from elsewhere in Italy, Istria and the Balkans.
- Worth knowing
- Use it within a few days — it loses scent daily. Keep it wrapped in kitchen paper in a sealed jar in the fridge, change the paper each day, and shave it thin with a truffle slicer straight onto the plate, over buttered pasta, risotto or a fried egg.
