The Truffle
The truffle is a fruiting body of mushrooms, of the genus Tuber which goes through its entire cycle of life underground (ipogo).
It must live in symbiosis with trees to produce the precious sorocarpo.
It is formed by an outer part called the crust, which can be read or cracked and whose colour can vary from gold to light grey.
Morphology and Characteristics
The truffle has certainly been known for an exceptionally long time, but it is uncertain whether historians really speak of truffles and no other underground mushrooms. It is therefore likely that the presence of the truffle appeared in the Sumerian and Jewish diet, around 1700-1600 BC.
The first texts appear in the Naturalis Historia, by the Latinist Pliny the Elder (AD 79). The anecdotes reported show that the truffle or tuber, simply translated into Latin, was much appreciated on the table of the Romans who, certainly collected from the Etruscans the culinary use of this mushroom.
In the AD first century, thanks to the Greek philosopher Plutarch, the truffle was adopted on the idea that the precious mushroom was born from the combined action of water, heat, and lightning. From there, various poets were inspired; one of them, Juvenal, explained the origin of the precious mushroom following a thunderbolt launched by Jupiter near an oak tree (sacred tree for the father of the Gods).
- The internal mass, called gleba, varying colours from white to black and from pink to brown, is branched by veins which surround the alveoli in which the large cells (aschi) containing spores are immersed. The morphological characteristics of the bark, gleba, aschi and spores, as well as the size and organoleptic characteristics, allow the identification of the species of truffle.
- There is hardly any way to pay such a high price for water like when you buy a truffle: in fact, the mushroom contains more than 80% of water. In the mineral elements, it contains potassium predominant, followed by calcium, sodium, magnesium, iron, zinc, and copper. The value of the truffle is not in its food intake, but in its enormous capacity to produce visual pleasure. In this function, there is also a large difference in market price between the existing species, whose chemical composition differs slightly.
Biological Cycle
Truffles must live in symbiosis with trees or shrubs to produce the precious porocarp; the exchange of substances between the two partners (the truffle and the plant) is at the level of the root in special formations called mycorrhizae, characteristically structured for each species.
The determination of the different species of truffles is essentially based on morphological characteristics such as shape, size, colour, ornamentation of the peridium, appearance of the soil, aroma, and flavour.
Buying
While buying a truffle, everyone must stop not only at the visual aspect of the mushroom, but also the olfactory and tactile one. The specimen to be taken into consideration and worthy of consumption must have a strong hardness, symptomatic freshness to the touch.
Unlike the truffle, crushed and deformable, generally it hides a rotor, anyway, it is a good product. The sense of smell has an even finer task in discovering between two good samples, which is the most precious. We consider the king of the truffle the Tuber Magnatum Pico, which is the white truffle.
We think that it is perfect truffle if, for instance, while smelling it you feel the balanced and delicate garlic of hay and honey, while it is certainly discarded, it remains flooded by only a puff of ammonia.
Tasting
The voluptuous versatility and the unique ability to make each dish large contribute significantly to making this underground mushroom an absolute specialty. It only takes a few grams, and a dozen just to embellish a flow abundantly.
The recipes for the truffles, which are used, are born from the versatility of the product, whose characteristic is to give value to each dish, without this being created for the truffle. Some advice to take full advantage of the white truffle: it can be eaten raw sliced, an essential base for enhancing its intense and powerful aroma.
Perhaps the raw meat beaten with a knife or with a fried egg, on tagliatelle with melted butter, are the best examples of how to marry the scent of truffle.