White truffle on the label
In Italy, several species of truffle grow, some more valuable and rare, others more common.
The differences between truffles lie in the color of the skin (peridium), the color of the internal area (glebe) as well as the taste and aroma that the truffles give off.
The rarest species of all is the "Tuber Magnatum Pico" because it cannot yet be cultivated.
The Tuber Magnatum Pico is generally called the "white truffle" and is the most loved truffle in the world, also the most significant truffle from a gastronomic point of view.
Tuber magnatum Pico is usually spherical in shape, but is often flattened and irregular in shape, with a pale yellow or even tawny peridium, occasionally with red-brown spots. The gleba, crisscrossed with abundant, highly branched white veins, varies in color, from milky to deep pink to light brown.
The White Truffle is flexible in size, it can easily reach that of a large apple and some specimens have well exceeded a kilo in size!
White truffles are harvested from late summer through autumn and into early winter. The harvest start and end dates are set annually by the designated county administration.
When you read "White Truffle" on a product label, make sure the species "Tuber Magnatum Pico" is listed and highlighted.
Quite often, we have seen products labeled with "white truffle" even though they contained "tuber borchii" or "tuber albidum" varieties as ingredients.
It is true that the color of "Tuber Borchii" or "Tuber Albidum" is similar to the color of Tuber Magnatum Pico, however, both of the above-mentioned botanical species are qualitatively different from Tuber Magnatum Pico, having a significantly lower economic value (both cost 10 to 15 times less than Tuber Magnatum Pico).
In Italy it is forbidden to call the tubers of Albidum-Borchii "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 "whitish spring truffle").
So pay attention to product labels and read them carefully: a "White truffle cream" must contain a percentage of Tuber magnatum Pico in the list of ingredients, not just substitutes such as Tuber Borchii or Tuber Albidum (in which case the product should be labeled "whitish truffle cream").
At TartufLanghe we never use Tuber Borchii or Tuber Albidum, which in our opinion are mushrooms of a decidedly inferior quality to Tuber Magnatum Pico, both of which have an intense but overpowering flavour, which makes them difficult to digest.
Photo credit: tuber.it