Last week at the grocery store, I watched a woman casually drop $200 on white truffles. When the clerk weighed them and announced the price, the customer didn’t flinch but I did. I got to enjoy the aroma briefly while the precious nuggets were on the scale, and that’s probably as close as I’ll get to white truffles this year.
By comparison, truffled cheese is a bargain, yet it still dresses up a New Year’s Eve table. Most fine cheese counters have a good selection of these aromatic wheels this week, from Cypress Grove’s Truffle Tremor to truffled triple-creams and truffled pecorino. I’ve sampled many of them over the years.
To my taste, the black truffle’s earthy scent is most compatible with buttery cow’s milk cheeses, which is why I gravitate to Sottocenere al Tartufo (soh-toh-CHEN-er-eh). Made at a creamery in Italy’s Veneto region from pasteurized milk, the 12-pound wheels are seasoned with sliced black truffle and matured for about three months sotto cenere—under ash—an ancient method of preserving cheeses. The ash leaves a fine, crusty gray coat on the outside that is largely cosmetic; I trim it away.
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