Truffles and flourishes

White truffles are expensive. Very expensive. Most of us eat the black ones from France (allegedly) quite often, I know. I used to slice them into my fried bologna sandwiches back home in Toledo during the period when I first discovered the pleasure of "slow cooking" (all the rage here). Well, maybe not all the time.

But Italy also has a white version, which they call tartuffo d'Alba for the region in Piedmont (near Turin) where they grow. These are, you hear, the top of the line. I had never seen a white one before. The ones I bought (three, to be exact), looked mushroomy and were about the size of an average radish. These cost more than a large bottle of Tabasco brand hot sauce and less than an F22 Raptor air superiority fighter jet. And I mean total cost, not cost per truffle. So they were more reasonable than you might have expected.

Now, some people get truffles. Others don't. I'm pretty sure House Majority Leader Tom DeLay doesn't. For others, like me, the jury's out - or was out.

We knew we were heading up to Zurich to visit Chris Luisi, an old friend of Susan and her family. We knew we were invited to dinner at other friends'. So I bought a miniscule amount of white truffle from the guy in the mushroom store in the pedestrian area of Varese. Don't get the idea that he makes a living selling a luxury item like truffles. He also sells fresh and dried porcini mushrooms, truffle slicers, and several other practical items.

You can't deny that truffles have a potent aroma. (When items cost more than a certain amount they stop having "smells" and start having "aromas.") Impossible to describe, but "earthy" and "winey" would be in there.

At the lovely house of Chris's friends Tonya and Uli (they have the biggest and nicest kitchen I've ever seen in a home in Europe, by the way), Uli and I, ably managed by Tonya, whipped up a nice, simple risotto. The recipe? Start cooking it the way you learned from Marcella Hazan, then follow Tonya's instructions until ready.

Uli dutifully sliced the truffles very thinly on the risotto. Over here you often eat your starch dish like risotto (best known as Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat to many of us) or pasta before your main dish, meat or fish.

Chris has lived in Switzerland a long time. She apparently believes this gives her the right to speak her mind. She said something like: "OK, the first and only other time that I had truffles I didn't get it. I thought perhaps it was me, or that they weren't fresh or weren't prepared right. But I don't get them this time either. I hereby declare that I don't need to wonder wat the big deal is about truffles any longer."

My risotto was delicious. The aroma of the truffle was strong and heady and all that, but I can't honestly say that the flavor of the .00008374 grams that were on my plate was strong enough to convert me. (Trust me, a pile of little shavings is the way you're supposed to eat these, the mushroom guy told me himself in formal French).

I'm not quite ready to write them off, there's a recipe involving marscapone and parmeggiano reggiano that I might have to try, but for now I won't be hocking my genuine zither to buy more truffles.