White truffle on the label

In Italy different truffle species are born, some being more precious and rarer, others being more commonplace.

The differences among truffles lay in the skin color (peridium), in the color of the internal area (glebe) as well as for the taste and scent truffles give off.

The rarest specie of them all is the "Tuber Magnatum Pico" because it is not yet cultivable. 

The Tuber Magnatum Pico is generally called "white truffle" and it is the most beloved truffle in the world, also the most significant truffle at a gastronomic level.

The Tuber Magnatum Pico has usually a spherical form, however often it is also flattened and irregular in shape, with a pale yellow or even a tawny peridium, occasionally found with red-brown patches. The gleba which is crossed by plentiful of highly branched white veins, varies in color, from a milky shade, to an intense pink, all the way to light brown.

White Truffle dimensions are flexible, they can easily reach those of a large apple and some specimens have abundantly exceeded the kilo in size!

White Truffle is harvested from late Summer, throughout the Fall until the beginning of Winter. The start and end date of the harvest is being set each year by the appointed county administration.

When reading "White Truffle" on a product label, make sure that " Tuber Magnatum Pico" specie is listed and highlighted.

Quite often, we have seen products labelled with "white truffle" although containing "tuber Borchii" or "tuber Albidum" varieties as ingredients. 

It is true that the color for “tuber Borchii" or "tuber Albidum" is similar to the Tuber Magnatum Pico color, however both of the above mentioned botanical species are qualitatively different from the Tuber Magnatum Pico,  having a significantly lower economical value (they both cost about 10 to 15 times less than the Tuber Magnatum Pico).

In Italy it is forbidden to call the Albidum-Borchii tubers "white truffle”, these varieties are instead called "bianchetti" (translated as “whitish” in English) or Marzuolo (translated as “truffle born in the month of March” or “Spring whitish truffle”).

So please pay attention to product labels and read them carefully: a "White truffle cream" must contain a percentage of Tuber magnatum Pico in the ingredient list, not merely substitutes such as Tuber Borchii or Tuber Albidum (in this case the product should be labelled "whitish truffle cream").

At TartufLanghe, we never use Tuber Borchii or Tuber Albidum, which in our opinion are mushrooms of a quite lower quality than the Tuber Magnatum Pico, both having an intense but overpowering flavor, making them difficult to digest.

Credit photos: tuber.it www.tartuflanghe.com