Buying Truffles In Italy
Most Italian truffles can be found in northern and central Italy, particularly Piedmont, Tuscany, Umbria or Le Marche. The farther south you go the scarcer they become due to changes in climate and soil.
buying truffles in italy
Truffles are a gourmet delicacy, one of the most expensive and desired in the world. Foodies swoon over them, international top chefs search them out and bid for them at auction, and truffles are without a doubt one of the priciest and most precious foodstuffs on the planet.
White truffle, the precious Tuber Magnatum Pico, is not common nor easy to find; the only places in the world where you can find it are Northern Italy (Piedmont), Central Italy (Tuscany, Marche, Umbria), and in small areas of Istria and Slovenia. The best, most coveted white truffles are the ones from Alba, Acqualagna, and San Miniato.
All over the world, you have many kinds of truffles, of which 63 are the ones classified as Tuber. You have about 25 different truffles in Italy, but only 9 of them are cataloged as edible. Each kind of truffle has its own season.
In previous centuries, pigs were used to go truffle hunting, especially female swine, particularly attracted to the truffles heady scent. They were hard to control, though, as being pigs, it was difficult to stop them from gobbling up the precious truffles.
At a restaurant, always ask to see the truffles before they slice them on the food and check them as described above. If the price is per gram, ask to check the weight. An average portion is usually 10 grams and costs about 40 euros.
Fresh truffles have to be eaten as soon as possible, especially white ones. You can store them for a limited length of time, wrapping them individually in a humid cloth, putting them in a glass jar with airtight closure, at 3-6C (37.4/42.8 F), like the fridge. If you change the cloth every day, you can keep white truffles for about a week and black ones for about 2 weeks.
With black truffles (summer and winter ones), you can cut them and whirl them in a blender with extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt to get a thick sauce that you can put in a glass jar. It lasts about 40 days, or you can even freeze it.
The easiest alternative to buying fresh truffle is buying preserved truffle or truffled food, but only from professional and trustworthy merchants and transformers and always check the percentage of truffle in each product. Excellent producers are Savini, Bianconi, Boscovivo, Tartuflanghe.
It's pretty common to fall in love with the food in Rome, and often people ask me where they can get truffles to take home (for the truffle lover, truffles are of course great gifts or souvenirs from Rome).
Fresh black (or white if you can find them) truffles (tartufo or tartufi in Italian) like you find at the market (and in the photo at the top of this page) are not ok to take home with you.
If you're wondering where to buy truffles, you might like what we have in store for you! Just arrived, we have the finest Fresh Winter White Truffles from Italy - click images below to proceed with your order.
Burgundy truffles are picked in season from September to the end of December and are widely used as a great source of delicious truffle flavor to any dish. Fresh Burgundy Truffles taste great in a sauce made from adding the truffles to hot oil, with a touch of garlic and seasoning. then spread over bruschetta or added directly to pasta, meat or fish.
Like every self-respecting treasure, prized truffles need to be hunted out. Expert truffle hunters draw upon their experience to uncover these 'diamonds of the kitchen' so that they can be used in mouth-watering dishes. Italy provides a natural habitat for a number of the very finest truffle species, including the prized white truffle, the highly-esteemed black Périgord truffle, the Burgundy truffle, the spring white truffle, the Brumale truffle and the summer truffle.
Fresh truffles can be ordered and purchased all year round on our website, as the various truffle varieties come into season at different times of year. It is important to harvest them properly and at the right time, when their flesh is ripe but firm with a pervasive woody aroma. Our truffles are supplied directly from the hunter to the consumer, allowing buyers to savour this exquisite subterranean fungus at its finest.
Contact us to find out more about our truffles and their harvesting periods. We supply fresh, top quality products, suited to all recipes. Our main priority is customer satisfaction, born out of an awareness that truffles should be appreciated according to specific rules, directly from the hunter to the consumer. As well as ensuring that the truffles are at their finest when they reach you, this lack of intermediaries and third-party distributors also allows you to purchase the best truffles at very favourable prices.
For a few fleeting weeks from late fall through early winter, White Truffles reclaim their rightful place on the truffle throne. Mycophiles worldwide rejoice, foragers flock to their trusty hardwood haunts, and slivers of these explosively aromatic, cream colored mushrooms garnish plates with peerless aplomb. And though myths about truffles are rampant, rest assured that these particular selections are the realest of deals, this year sourced from our partners in northern Italy, and shipped multiple times each week to ensure peak freshness when they make their way to you.
Though White Truffles are sometimes referred to as Alba Truffles, this nickname is misleading, because the town of Alba, Italy does not actually produce any truffles. White Winter Truffles are properly designated by their scientific name, Tuber magnatum pico.
What size do you need? If you want to prepare a dish with white truffles for 2 people, you can be satisfied with a small piece of truffle, about 10/15g. If you have a restaurant and have to make numerous courses, it is more likely that you will have to buy several medium or large truffles.
It is in the nature of truffles that prices fluctuate so much, but it is also what makes the search and purchase of the precious underground mushroom such an attractive experience. Below in the example you can see the national average of truffle prices for the two most sought-after species:
The white Alba truffle season seemed to have benefited from late summer rains and an early autumn, leading older truffle hunters to predict that white truffles would appear in large numbers from late October onwards and then continue into November and December.
Truffle prices fluctuate greatly throughout the year. In addition, costs can vary considerably depending on the area of collection and the state of conservation. Did you know that harvesting unripe truffles is also illegal? If you want to buy fresh truffles, you should be accompanied by an expert, especially in the famous Trifolau squares. Knowing how to evaluate a good specimen is a must in order to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Analyze the prices of truffles closely by consulting our table, evaluating an online bag or consulting a trusted company (or a certified portal). You can buy the product directly on the internet, without taking unnecessary risks. Nothing prevents you from taking part in a traditional sale on the Trifolau squares, but make sure you always have an expert at your side who can advise you when needed.
Truffle prices vary considerably depending on the season, to make a wise purchase it is much better to wait for the right time, when availability is much greater. What is the right time to buy truffles?
The exorbitant price of truffles has captivated the imagation of many seeking to make it rich by finding some tuber in the dirt. But how much do truffles cost, exactly? Well the price depends on many factors including global supply of truffles, species of truffles, where in the supply chain you are buying truffles, and how large of a truffle you are looking for. Truffle.farm has compiled the *only* publicly available retail truffle price tracker. Everyday, our tool automatically compares and compiles truffle price data from truffle retailers allowing you to see the most accurate price point for truffles. We will also be keeping the historical prices so that you can tell if you are buying truffles for lower or higher than average. Note: Due to the seasonal availability of truffles, prices for some truffles will hardly move until their respective truffle season. For the time being, we will be tracking the five most commonly sold truffles.
When people think of pricey truffles, they are thinking of the Italian white winter truffle. White truffle season starts mid-September and runs through December/January. The most expensive white truffle ever sold went for $484,000 USD per lb while the largest truffle ever sold went for $66,000 per lb. More typically however, white truffles sell for $1500-$4000 USD per lb. We started tracking retail white truffle prices in mid 2019. The chart below shows the average retail price (e.g. price the regular consumer can buy them for) for white truffles. Currently, the cheapest white truffles are being sold by Gourmet Food Store for $0.00 per lb while the most expensive truffles are being sold for $0.00 per lb by Urbani.
The second most exppensive truffle is Tuber Melanosporum, or the Winter Black truffle (sometimes also called Perigord truffle or French black truffle). Growing only in southern Europe during the winter, winter black truffles are both rare and covetted. When buying winter black truffles, one needs to be careful not to fall for imitations. The Chinese black truffle looks very similar to Tuber Melanosporum, but is genetically different and has a different flavor/scent profile. The average retail price for winter black truffles is $327.84 per lb. They can be bought in bulk (lb scale or greater) from Urbani for just $768.00 per lb. The most expensive winter black truffles came from Gourmet Food Store, selling for $768.00 per lb (for 1.44 oz of truffle). 041b061a72