White Truffle Season
Yes its that time of year when Bruno, The Truffle Man, keeps popping into Cucina Caldesi to tempt us his precious earthy nuggets of white truffle. Although I find the smell intoxicating and mouthwatering, I still cannot bring myself to part with hundreds of pounds for a muddy morsel. Maybe now I wont have to as next week I am going to Alba in Northern Italy, the home of the white truffle. As I have to write an article on white truffles and their worth I am going to spend time with a truffle hunter and his dogs to see what exactly goes into finding these rare specimens. Apparently his dogs are worth £15,000 each so that’s a start to finding out where the end consumer’s money goes. I have to be up at 4am to meet him at 5am in the forest so I’d better not forget my alarm clock. Perhaps if I pack him a nice english bacon butty and a vacuum flask of tea he’ll let me bring a truffle back for nothing! Well I can hope. I don’t actually like dogs, they terrify me and I’m allergic to them too, so between fearing from my life and sneezing I really hope we find some flipping truffles or it will be one of the worst early mornings of my life.
I’ll be filming part of my trip and showing the results at our Truffle Evening with Bruno on Friday 27th October so if you are equally mad on truffles come and join us, details on the website www.caldesi.com.