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Truffles are no Trifle

Italy’s “King of Truffles” died on June 17 at age 79. Paolo Urbani and his brother ran Urbani Tartufi, which claimed control of 70% of the world market for both black and white truffles. Along the way Urbani introduced Italian truffles to the world as well.
Truffles are the coveted fungi above all others dating back to medieval times. The 18th-century French gastronome Brillat-Savarin called truffles "the diamond of the kitchen". Urbani’s family founded the firm back in the 1800s.

The white truffle or Alba madonna (Tuber magnatum) comes from the Langhe area of the Piedmont region in northern Italy and, most famously, in the countryside around the city of Alba. It is also found in Croatia, on the Istria peninsula in the Motovun forest alongside Mirna river. While in Dubrovnik in 2007 I had ethereal white truffles showered on creamed white noodles that were nectar from the gods.

Growing symbiotically with oak, hazel, poplar and beech and fruiting in autumn, truffles can reach 12 cm diameter and 500 g, though are usually much smaller. The flesh is pale cream or brown with white marbling. Like the French black truffles, Italian white truffles are highly esteemed.

The white truffle market in Alba is busiest in the months of October and November, where a 1.6-pound white truffle sold for $150,000 on Nov. 8, 2009 during the 79th White Truffle Festival. In 2001, the Tuber magnatum truffles sold for between $1,000 and $2,200 US per pound; as of December 2009 they were being sold at 10,200€ per kilogram ($28,130 per pound).

The Chinese truffle (Tuber sinensis, also sometimes called Tuber indicum) is a winter black truffle harvested in China. Due to their fast growing nature, Chinese truffles are often exported to the West as an inferior-quality substitute of Tuber melanosporum. Restaurants have been known to serve Chinese truffles and claim they are the real deal.

Urbani has a vast network throughout Italy that supplies the firm with truffles and provides it with competitive information. Farmers keep secret the location of their truffle trees and they have been known to poison competitor’s dogs. Historically truffles were hunted by pigs, but they love to eat the stuff, so dogs have been substituted. Old truffle hunters, known as Cavatori, or extractors, can be recognized by the fingers they have lost to their truffle pigs.

Today more than half the annual black truffle production is farmed. But the illusive and prized white truffles must still be gathered in the wild. As for Urbani, his daughter Olga will carry on the family tradition.
Richard Wottrich