Black Truffle
The black truffle of Norcia
Norcia is the first city in the charts for the production of Tuber melanosporum Vittadini or Vitt., The most valuable black truffle on the market, the protagonist of many recipes of international cuisine and the subject of active export from Italy. It is an underground mushroom shape for the more rounded, but sometimes even irregular and lobate. Its size is variable, from a hazelnut to a large potato and takes only exceptionally larger. Black-brown, tending to purplish or reddish, has a verrucous surface, with warts apex depressed and with whitish veins. The scent can be perceived from afar, is aromatic and fruity, and particularly pleasant and the taste is exquisite, so that is also called black truffle "sweet".
The fruiting body of truffles is particularly rich in proteins, mineral salts, nitrogen compounds, organic acids, fats, carbohydrates and cellulose; so its nutritive value is much higher than that of any plant, also in other fungi epigeal , which, living on the surface, are more watery and less tasty. It is therefore not random assignment of the name of "vegetable meat". The nose also has medicinal properties so that in the past it was used in the form of syrup, to treat any type of pain, or as an antibiotic, in the form of pasta. Furthermore, although not scientifically proven, it gives the truffle a aphrodisiac properties due to the delicate flavor and delicious aroma.
This precious tuber 
grows in hilly and mountainous for the most exposed near oaks, oaks, holm oaks, hornbeam and hazel blacks. It prefers calcareous, stony, well drained and alkaline. In Italy is predominantly north-central Apennines and Norcia is known to its ideal habitat. The truffle, also called "pianelli" or "hollow" or "fairy rings", are characterized by the almost total herbaceous vegetation. The disappearance of the carpet plant is in fact due to the emission of a potent antibiotic and the formation of an excess of hormones.
The Regional Law No. 6 of 28.02. '94 States that the collection of truffles is free in the woods, in uncultivated land and along the banks of rivers classified public. The private truffle should instead be defined by specific tables. For the miners, the law prescribes the obligation to obtain a permit, after passing an examination, the Mountain Communities. The truffle identified by the nose of the dog (the truffle can not carry more than two) can be extracted from the ground with the aid of a "vanghella" or a "zappetto", avoiding to collect the immature or spoiled. When finished, the holes must always be thoroughly covered.
Norcia has always been the home of black truffle, offers a very wide range of dishes prepared with this valuable plant product which, despite its sophistication and its title of "king of the table" for his goodness and his price (which varies depending on the season, the quantities collected and market demand), is widely used even in the most popular recipes: toast, spaghetti with truffles, omelette with truffles and filet, trout and truffle salad, lamb, truffled .. and even truffle dessert. There is in fact worth mentioning that in recent years the dairy industry but also pastries nursine are working to create products with a unique flavor, thanks to the addition, cheeses and chocolates, a special dose of truffle. What about the black truffle of the bitter? Nothing to envy to other products on the market.
Curiosity:
# The story of the nose back to 3000 BC, when Babylonian King sought this delicious fruit in the sands of the desert.
# For centuries the nature and appearance of the nose were the subject of disputes and assumptions by scientists and philosophers, the greek philosopher Theophrastus (third century BC.) Considers him the son of the autumn rains and thunder; the greek historian Plutarch, in the second century. AD, linking the birth of the nose to the merger of three important elements such as lightning, water and earth, Pliny the Elder calls him "the miracle of nature."
# The truffle of Norcia is also mentioned in the novel by Umberto Eco, set back in 1327, "The Name of the Rose".
# Currently the nose begins when water or simple tiny insects of the earth carrying the spores of this "special mushroom" on the roots of normal trees. On the roots begin to appear early tubercles (bumps) and this indicates that the truffle is already living in symbiosis with the plant: it says that it happened the mycorrhization.
# In 1700 the French naturalist Georges Buffon planted some truffles blacks near the roots of an oak, but the experiment resulted in failure.
# Today, however, there is also the truffle DIY. It is the truffle that is born in the garden or on the terrace of the house. The process is very simple: the spores mature truffles, useful for breeding shall be inoculated into the roots of seedlings of birch, poplar, oak, .. and after ten months the results are checked under a microscope. But only three years after the plant becomes truffle, which begins to produce truffles that can be collected between 4 th -5 th year.
# The nose suffers more by the humidity or drought.
# The best soils for truffles are clay and limestone, shallow, as appropriate to promote the development of shallow root system and not horizontally and vertically.
# The black winter truffle stands out from others, in addition to the characteristic flavor to the meat (or serfs) black, the gray streaks. Everyone else, however, have a white meat or hazel gialletta. You just have to scratch the bark to see what gives us the inside.