Fine White Truffle

 

Fine White Truffle (Tuber Magnatum Pico)

Season: from October to December

Magnatum Pico is the most exclusive edible truffle in the world and its price reaches up to several thousand of dollars per kilogram, depending on the season. It is mostly picked in Italy, and it can also be found solely in Istria, and parts of Slovenia and Hungary. It grows in predominantly gray limestone soils of high microporosity with only a few stones. It always chooses shady forest areas with limited changes in temperature. Magnatum Pico connects with roots of poplar, willow, hazel, oak and hazel trees and the time of its harvest is very short, from October to December.

 

The fruit is usually spherically anomalously shaped. It can reach the size of a big apple and it most often grows to the size from 2 to 15 cm. Its skin (peridium) is smooth and ochre yellow or olive yellow in color, and sometimes it can reveal a more rustic cracked area or light red spots. The gleba (fleshy inner mass) is firm and soapy in structure, at the beginning whitish and then pale yellow, ochre brown, reddish brown, streaked with many thin white lines. Intensive in scent and strong but pleasant in flavor.  It's distinctive taste and smell is highly appreciated and have positioned fine white truffle as a king of high-end gastronomy. It is eaten uncooked, no thermal treatment is required.

Definitions of its aroma by some authors: "very remarkable scent, almost garlicky" (Vittadini); "pleasant aromatic scent, superior to that of any other truffle, fragrant, a little garlicky" (Mannozzi); odor fragrant, sub alliaceous, casei corrupti" (Ceruti); "typical intense odour of methane and fermented cheese" (Montecchi); "intense odour, slightly garlicky" (Pacioni); "characteristic odour, exquisite, very strong, vaguely garlicky at full maturation. Very pleasant, particular, very intense taste" (Stecchi).

 

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