| Tuber magnatum Picco |
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common name(s) : Italian White Truffle, Piedmont Truffle
synonyms: Tuber griseum, Tuber album, Tuber sibarium edibility : edible, good
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The fruiting body is irregularly globular (like a more or less gibbose potatoe), whitish, cream to pale ochre, sometimes washed with greenish. The outer skin is smooth to slightly rough in some places, thin and not peelable, without stem. The flesh is firm, grainy, with whitish to slightly rose-red fertile parts at first, these becoming brownish with a reddish tinge when mature, and crossed by sterile white and densely branched veins, giving it an overall marbled look; its taste is very pleasant, nutty; the odour is pleasant and strong, of fresh cheese and garlic. The fertile surface is internal. It grows underground (at a depth ranging from 2in to almost 2ft, which is from 5 to 50cm deep), in deciduous woodlands, on a rather calcareous-clayey soil, preferably with poplars, also with oaks, willows, lime-trees.
Distinctive features : whitish to ochre fruiting body, shaped like an irregular potatoe and found underground; very fragrant flesh, pale ochre then brownish with a reddish tinge, and marbled with white veins; on calcareous soils with deciduous trees (preferably poplar); confined to some parts of Mediterranean Europe (Northern Italy, Southern France, Balkans). Tuber magnatum is still unreported so far in the forest of Rambouillet, and is very rare, more generally speaking .
page updated on 14/01/18 |