The White Truffle Rule That Changes How You Eat One

There's a rule about white truffles that changes how you think about eating one. They don't preserve. They don't travel well. Whatever you find shaved over your plate in Alba in October exists nowhere else, not next week, not two towns over, and not in any restaurant back home no matter what they charge you for it.

Tuber magnatum pico grows wild underground in the Langhe hills, and it's found with this kind of consistency almost nowhere else on earth. Finding it still requires a trained dog and someone who knows the ground. The Alba Truffle Fair runs weekends from early October into early December and pulls buyers from well beyond Italy, all chasing the same short window. Locally, the truffle gets shaved raw over tajarin, thin egg pasta tossed in brown butter, in trattorias across the Langhe.

Katie has always said the best food experiences are the ones where the ingredient needs almost nothing done to it. This might be the purest version of that we know of.