It's a crying shame! This poor truffle was left to rot in a restaurant safe, unloved, uneaten. I wonder how many plates of pappardelle and shaved white truffle we could have shared...
Some fun facts about truffles:
* The largest truffle ever found (and recorded) was a 2 kg white truffle dug up near Alba in 1951. In these cases, the white truffle lives up to its scientific name Tuber magnatum, or "enormous truffle."
* The Oxford Food Companion claims that dogs are a little bit better for truffle hunting than pigs are because "separating [the pig] from a truffle it has found is awkward."
* The truffle fly, Helomyza tuberiperda, lays its eggs where truffles lie so that its larvae can gorge like they're at Per Se when they hatch.
* Chocolate truffles are so named because they are shaped to look like real truffles. They first gained popularity in the 1920s.
* Truffles are one of those gifts from the earth whose growth cannot be forced, so we are subject to nature's whims year after year. They grow along the roots of certain trees in Perigord, France (black truffles), Alba, Italy (white truffles), Spain and Portugal (not sure what kind); I've read stories about truffles in the mideast, China, and Oregon as well, though truffle snobs don't believe they are worth exploring.
I've heard from Yuka and from the mushroom shop lady that this was a most excellent year for truffles, so treat yourself to a truffle and invite me over for dinner!
* Thanks to Yuka for the link to this story!
i think there is a great lesson in this story. which is -- don't keep your giant tuffle in your safe. eat it. don't save it to rot.
i also love dearly how people in florence asked for it's return and burried it, read the poem while they were burying it. those people will be blessed!
absolutely! i love it...