White Truffles & Barbaresco   

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Here inspectors are grading white truffles for sellers and buyers.

Several truffle vendors with their costly merchandise. Each one is equipped with a precise scale—a truffle costs about US$130 per ounce.

These white truffles are quite large and filled the market with their strong perfume. Truffles imported into the United States are much smaller than these. Perhaps truffles of this size never leave Italy.

Here is a fine collection of local black truffles, also on sale at the Truffle Market in Alba.

The enoteca in the very small village of Barbaresco is not in a castle but instead wonderfully located in this disused church.

Dinner was in nearby Canale. We had fish orange, moscato and red cabbage; tagliatelle with butter and truffle; chicken with taglietelle; and long cooked beef with vanilla, cauliflower and currant sauce.

Alba has a municipal truffle market, open only in season, October and November. We also went to Barbaresco,a very small hill town with a famous wine.

Next—Saluzzo, the “Sienna of the North” and then to Susa, near the Alps and the French border.