italy trufflemarket
At the Western Montana Mycological Association - we learn alot AND have alot of fun too!
Click on thumbnails to see larger pics....
italy trufflemarket
Inside a cavernous tent pitched on a large paved plaza in Alba, Italy, The biggest and most famous white truffle market in the world takes place.
The dark moustached man in the cowboy hat is keeping a close eye on the hundreds of dollars worth of truffles on the table in front of him. Each truffle is set out alone, with a price tag under it. Price is based on the ripeness of the truffle, the going market rate, and the supply of truffles anticipated each season. The truffles are weighed out on impeccably precise scales, and kept under clear plastic cake covers to contain and reinforce their aroma.
The reason these truffles are worth just hundreds, and not thousands, of dollars, is that they are summer truffles, Tuber aevestium, which have a nice appealing fruity smell (like our Alpovas or Leucangia carthusiana), but don't offer the aphrodasiac effect of the true truffles, or lend quite the flavor enhancing properties that the white truffle offers.
Inside the tent that housed the truffle market, restauranteurs, truffle brokers, wholesale grocers, and connoisseurs bid for the day's catch. The truffle hunters and peddlers, on the other side of the counter, were a wild-looking bunch in a variety of curious hats and eccentric costumes. The aroma of truffles permeated the inside of the tent so strongly that one woman in our party was overcome and had to leave to get air outside. The aroma, or stench, of truffles is like butter, sweet wine, and sexual excitement, and it can be overpowering. The atmosphere inside the tent was also charged with the excitement of so much money and mushroom changing hands.
Besides raw truffles, large and small businesses sponsored a variety of truffle oils, preserves, and other truffle-laced items.
This photo shows an example of a few of the processed forms of truffles that are made in Alba, Italy. The salespeople were ever polite unless you dissed their product. But only a fool would do that... still, many such products contain very little truffle and lots of flavor enhancers.
This is an interesting contrast between the Italian and American markets, because in Italy most of the wild mushrooms (Boletes, in this case) go to the open market, where they fetch the best price, whereas in the States very few retail markets exist for wild mushrooms. Most of the volume in fungi in the US is wholesale, going slightly to local and domestic restaurants, and mostly exported wholesale to the larger and much better established European and Asian markets. Estimates of the value of wild mushroom exports is now in the billions of dollars US.
At the Farmer's Market in Missoula, Montana, WMMA founder Larry Evans and his assistant Brandon Osman pose with some of their day's find. Larry has been selling Agaricus, Boletes, Chanterelles, Puffballs, Shimeji, Hericium, Oyster mushrooms, and of course morels and truffles, at the market since 1991.
Although most of the mushrooms he finds nowadays go into special dishes at the Black Dog Cafe, Larry can still occasionally be found under the red & white cap at the Saturday market, peddling edibles and identifying strange fungi for people.
This Saturday they had several Russula xerampelina, some Agaricus bitorquis, and a funny photo op for the market roaming photographers.
Here Larry, in the red & white cap, offers John Pierce the opportunity to buy a pound or two of giant puffball. Often mushroom hunters will come to the market to confirm the identity of an unusual edible they have found, and sometimes donate some of them to Larry. (Keep that in mind, now!)
For several years, Larry hosted mushroom hunts at the end of the market, at noon. Now the Missoula Farmer's Market hosts as many as 8 booths each Saturday selling wild mushrooms, usually just morels and oyster mushrooms. Larry has been recognized as the first Montana state certified wild mushroom dealer.
Puffballs are great when sliced in half inc thick slabs, rolled in flour, then dipped in egg wash, and breaded or floured again.. They need to be well sealed before frying, or they will just soak up the oil and be gummy and unpleasant. Fried just right, they are crisp and succulent, like wine and walnuts.
© The Western Montana Mycological Association