Black and White Truffle Tracking

Having sampled many of the specialties of the Montiglio Truffle festival and purchased the coveted white truffle, with a black one thrown in gratis for good measure, we decided to move on.Part two of the Truffle tracking adventure took us on to Castellinaldo to the Marsaglia Cantina, for some wine to go with our truffles, since we were in the neighborhood. The Marsaglia family has been making wines in the Langhe region for 4 generations, producing delicious local varieties, Arneis, Nebbiola and Barbera on their small mostly south facing farm. Marina Marsaglia, always the gracious hostess welcomed us in even though we just turned up on Sunday without calling. Marina has worked tirelessly to bring their small family production the respect and recognition that it deserves. She is part of the "Le Donne del Vino del Piemonte" association of women winemakers, helping to put Marsaglia on the map. We sampled a few of their delicious wines before heading home for the evenings feast and later on as well.

As we got closer to home we decided to stop in our local wholesaler of Porcino in Dubbione, located at the bottom of our road and where my in-laws sell their over flow of Porcini and our wholesalers send on to Torino and eventually to many other point of sales around Italy and beyond. It's always an interesting stop to see the local cottage industry in action during the season. Arriving home we got busy cleaning and preparing the porcini and truffles for greedy consumption. Starting out with cleaning these ever so fresh funghi and tubers to remove all the dirt so there won't be any grit to detract from enjoyment later on.

The evening's menu consisted of crude thinly sliced porcino topped with shaved white truffle, dressed with a fruity extra virgin olive oil. Followed by Porcino and Truffle Risotto, which we were halfway thru before we realized we forgot to take any pictures and then a Secondo of Turkey Saltimboca accompanied by prefectly grilled slabs of Porcini. Yum Yum Yum...I'd like to have that again tonight, but alas not for another season I think.