A truffle for all seasons

Last Monday my brother emailed me and asked if I could get hold of some truffles for his fiancee's birthday - they'd probably be easier to find in London than in Pembrokeshire, where he lives.  Now I find truffle seasons and species slightly confusing.  I had known that T.Aestivum, the 'summer truffle' grows in this country and is a bit indifferent compared to the magnificent white Alba truffle (T. Magnatum Pico) or the black truffle (T. Melanosporum), the kind that Perigord is famous for.  I called up Fortnum and Mason and they said they had autumn truffle available at £419 a kilo.  So, I looked up what an autumn truffle and according to various different sources this could be T. Uncinatum, which is apparently morphologically identical to the summer truffle or it could be 'Scorzone' (T. Mesentericum) or it could just be a summer truffle picked in autumn.  Anyway . . . a bit more of a search took me to Truffle UK Ltd which put me straight on summer truffles.

I called Truffle UK and asked if they had any truffles available.  Not at the moment, said Nigel, but he'd be going hunting this afternoon and they might also be getting some from Italy.  Early white truffles from Italy perchance?  By this time it was Thursday, but Nigel said he could probably get something to Alastair for the meal on Saturday.  Cool.  I emailed my brother with the good news.

Alastair emailed back - the meal was planned for Friday, not Saturday.  Doh!

I raced down to Borough Market in my lunch break . . . sadly no fresh truffles (Alba still a few weeks away), so I settled for a preserved 'winter' truffle and sent it off via Special Delivery.

I got back to the office and had a phone call from Nigel - he was out in the forest, he'd found some truffles and could he have Alastair's address to send them?  Even though I'd already sent some, I thought I'd better take these too.  Not only had Nigel been very nice and been hunting around for them for me, I thought they'd definitely be good fresh and Alastair would probably still like them.

Borough Market, open (with a limited number of stalls) on Thursday.  I'd forgotten!  After the truffle frenzy I wandered around and bought some lunch. 

  I saw this beautiful tuna being worked on.

Then I investigated Roast's takeaway operation, Roast To Go.  They didn't, in fact, have a roast to go, so I settled for crab bridge roll.  Absolutely delicious.

I must make sure I get down there for lunch more often on Thursdays and Fridays.

Comments

[Alastair]

They arrived and were distributed amongst various methods of storage. More on my blog shortly. Beautiful, fat and pungent. Somewhat overshadowing the preserved "winter" truffles that arrived the day before. My advice. It seems with all foods bar chutney and ham, is to eat the fresh kind. In season.

Public thanks to Nick at Truffle UK for the magnificent specimens.