This is the truffle of truffles, in terms of its economic value. Also known as the Alba or Piedmontese truffle, as it grows mainly in this area (Monferrato and Langhe), small quantities can be found in some parts of central Italy and the south of France. Alba gave it its name, but in Piedmont it can be found throughout the Monferrato, Langhe and Roero areas and also in parts of the hills round Turin.

It is a lumpy-looking object, with a pitted, uneven surface. The outermost skin is smooth and faintly velvety, and the colour varies from pale ochre to dark cream to greenish. Its flesh is unmistakeable: white and yellowish grey with subtle white streaks. It is pleasingly aromatic but different from the garlicky whiff of other types of truffle, which is why it is so unique. It grows in symbiosis with oak trees, lindens, poplars and willows, and is rarely found among other truffles. The white truffle needs a particular kind of soil and special climatic conditions to flourish: the soil must be soft and moist most of the year round, rich in calcium and well-aerated. It is evident that not all areas offer these characteristics and these environmental conditions are precisely what makes the white truffle such a rare and highly prized speciality. The season goes from September to December.

The truffle was first discovered in ancient times. There are records of it being eaten by the Sumerian people and in the days of the patriarch Jacob, around 1700-1600 BC.
The Greeks called it ‘hydnon’, hence the term ‘hydnology’ denoting the study of the truffle, or ‘idra’, while in Latin it was called ‘tuber’ from the verb tumere (to swell). In Arabic it is ‘Ramech Alchamech Tufus’ or ‘Tomer e Kemas’, in Spanish ‘turma de tierra’ or ‘cadilla de tierra’, in French ‘truffe’ (derived from the word for fraud, linked to the play “Tartuffe” written by Molière in 1664) and in German ‘Hirstbrunst’, or ‘Truffel’.

The Sumerians mixed truffles with other ingredients like barley, chick peas, lentils and mustard, while the ancient Athenians loved it so much that they even granted honorary citizenship to the children of Cherippo for having invented a new truffle recipe. Pliny the Elder in his ‘Historia Naturalis’ tells the story of a certain praetor, Laertius Licinius, who found himself in the position of having to pass judgement on a rather awkward truffle-related question.

A rich man was demanding compensation from a person who had given him a gift of a truffle containing a coin which he only found when he bit into the truffle and broke his front teeth. Pliny, in the role of naturalist, describes the truffle as “something which is born but cannot be planted”.
Plutarch puts forward a rather original theory, asserting that the “tuber” is created by the combined effects of water, heat and lightning. Similar theories were held and debated by (among the best known), Pliny, Martial, Juvenal and Galen, giving rise to long but inconclusive diatribes.

As the origins of the truffle could not be established with any degree of certainty, the combination of science and folk wisdom it generated came to lend it an aura of mystery: so much so that people even became unsure of whether it was a plant or an animal. It was termed a ‘callus of the soil’, or even branded a foodstuff for devils and witches.
And it was even believed to contain deathly poisons, but the risk of poisoning lay not in the truffle itself, but in the place it grew, potentially in the vicinity of snakes, the lairs of poisonous animals, rusty metal or corpses.

Indeed Guainero, in his manual "Pratica Medicinae", deals with the subject of poisoning from mushrooms and truffles, and after a detailed description of the terrible sufferings occasioned by this type of intoxication, recommends cooking mushrooms and truffles together with pears, which were thought to absorb the poisons.
In actual fact the pears have little to do with it: the toxic substances found in fungi break down at a temperature of around 60-70 degrees centigrade, so cooking eliminates them altogether. Other recipes are supplied by Dioscorides in his book "Of medical matters", which recommends a cocktail of vinegar, saline solution and chicken droppings. The first treatise entirely dedicated to the truffle dates back to MDLXIIII, and was written by Alfonso Ciccarelli, a physician from Umbria.

The only episode in the history of the truffle linked to a death, probably in actual fact due to an attack of indigestion, was recorded in 1368. It was the Duke of Clarence, son of Edward Plantagenet III, who had come to visit Alba, and after an abundant banquet, including, among other things, the unfortunate truffle, “having consumed a pair of large truffles as if they were bread, he attempted to cool his innards with various wines but was overcome with a great heat which led to his death”. The culinary history of the truffle was quite another story, as no amount of scientific theories could stop it being used in cooking. It is known that Pope Gregory IV made great use of it, officially to replenish the resources spent combating the Saracens. Sant’Ambrogio thanked the bishop of Como San Felice for his gift of some marvellous truffles.

In past times truffles were also called the “garlic of the rich” in view of their faintly garlicky aroma, and naturally also because they were in abundant supply. They were consumed in large quantities in Piedmont around the 17th century, in imitation of the French, and it should be noted that the truffles in question were not the black variety, which were mainly used for stuffing meat and fish, but the prized white truffle itself.

In the 18th century the various royal courts viewed the Piedmontese truffle as the most prized. Truffle-hunting was a courtly pastime that guests and foreign ambassadors in Turin were invited to participate in. This is maybe when the practice of using the noble canine to sniff them out was first introduced. At the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century the kings of Italy Vittorio Amedeo II and Carlo Emanuele III engaged in genuine truffle hunts. In 1751 Carlo Emanuele III even organised a truffle hunting expedition for the British court, in an attempt to introduce truffles into British cuisine. Some truffles were unearthed, but of a much lower quality than those of Piedmont.

Count Camillo Benso di Cavour used truffles in politics as an aid to diplomacy, Gioacchino Rossini defined it the "Mozart of fungi", Lord Byron kept one on his desk as the fragrance inspired his creativity, and Alexandre Dumas termed it the ‘Sancta Santorum’ of the table. Coming to the present day, one illustrious figure in the history of the truffle is
Giacomo Morra, hotelier and restaurant owner from Alba.