Mark your calendar: White truffles are officially in season October first.

Would you pay £1300.00 for a mushroom? How much do you love a food served by the "shaving"?  Welcome to the wondrous world of white truffles.

October is prime white truffle time.  For the strong of taste and fat of wallet, few gustatory delights rival white truffles-obviously an extravagance at approximately £1300.00 per pound, but absolutely worth every precious penny, aficionados insist.  Unlike the other more plebeian truffles, the Italian white truffle is the one only specially trained pigs can find, and white truffles grow more frighteningly scarce with each passing season.  Indigenous to just one tiny Italian region where they command the same reverence as artistic masterpieces and sacred texts, white truffles are available only during October, November, and early December; and white truffle auctions draw more intense combatants and aggressive bidders than art and exotic car auctions combined.

Exceptionally high praise for an elusive fungus

Time magazine food writer Josh Ozersky claims, "white truffles have a unique aroma, a combination of newly ploughed soil, fall rain, burrowing earthworms and the pungent memory of lost youth and old love affairs." He stresses how he could not find a single reputable chef who did not love them-and superlatives only...no room for simple, ordinary expressions of adulation, admiration, or affection.  No chef just "likes" or simply "appreciates" white truffles.  Upscale, fully five-star chefs love, adore, and go wild over Italian white truffles.  At the highest end of all things upscale, uber chef Alex Guarnaschelli goes straight to the pinnacle of the superlative scale, insisting, "They are sublime."  She describes their flavour as "delicate yet complex," an expression consistent with the claim white truffles taste like old love affairs.

Tasty and tempting truffle treats

Guamaschelli prefers her white truffle shavings over mashed potatoes or risotto, warming them slightly to release their flavour.  In the finer food emporia, chefs deliver their white truffle shavings atop creamy or buttery pasta.  The Internet's leading white truffle retailer takes a more eclectic approach, suggesting, "Shave raw white truffle on pasta, risotto, salads, eggs, sauces, or with poultry or other white meats such as rabbit or veal. White truffles also pair well with hard Italian cheeses, proscuito and salami."  A true truffle snob will presume to inquire about her tuber's provenance, because truffles that grow near oak roots will deliver more fragrance than those grown near limes, and tubers that trade water and minerals with pine trees take-on a "garlicky" flavor.  Just as importantly, a truffle nurtured in pliant, forgiving earth will come out smooth and soft, whereas the product of hard soil will emerge knotty and tough.

One need not consider nutrition.

Under no circumstances might one claim-at least, not with a straight face-that adding truffle shavings to a dish increases its nutritional value.  Although trufflistos insist they are exceptionally protein rich and loaded with vitamin D, more reliable sources stress that the elusive tuber is 90% water, so that a person would have to consume at least a pound, or approximately1231 shavings, of truffle "meat" to get any significant protein and carbohydrate.

The designer-label fungus

One very frugal gourmet, therefore, compares truffles with designer labels: "The haberdasher shows you two blue blazers-absolutely identical in every way, except that one sports the distinctive Ralph Lauren logo and costs considerably more.  Which do you choose?  The shopper who chooses the Lauren over no name also will choose truffles over mushrooms.  How much does the buyer's ego need nourishment from conspicuous consumption?"