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Truffles Quotes

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Truffles Quotes

“Escoffier knew if he could win Sara's heart it would be with a dish made of truffles and pureed foie gras, the one she often doted over. The subtle aroma of truffle, according to the great Brillat-Savarin, was an aphrodisiac. And so, "Let the food speak where words cannot," Escoffier said, making the sign of the cross, and cooking as if his life depended on it, because on some level it did. When the chef finally knocked on the studio door, his small hands shook under the weight of the silver tray and its domed cover. Escoffier had changed into clean clothes and now looked more like a banker than a chef. But he was, most certainly, a chef. Beneath the dome, caramelized sweetbreads, covered with truffles, lay on a bed of golden noodles that were napped in a sauce made from the foie gras of ducks fed on wild raspberries, the 'framboise,' of the countryside. It was a dish of profound simplicity, and yet luxury.”

InspirationFoodTrufflesFoie GrasSarah BernhardtAuguste And SaraAuguste Escoffier
Book:White Truffles in Winter
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“Cassie speared one of the fried balls and placed it on her plate, along with a scoop of the dark brown paste. They looked simple enough, like any bar food. When she cut it open, though, it erupted with steam, gooey Gruyère cheese, and shredded duck meat. She cut it into quarters, rationed out the fig butter for each piece, and took a bite. Salty and crunchy, the meat sweet and savory--- and Ben was right. That fig butter--- the creative addition of fat and sweet jammy fruit, punctuated with large crystals of crunchy sea salt--- made the dish sing. "It's the holy trinity of sugar, fat, and salt," Ben said, and took a drink of champagne. The pizza arrived just as the group polished off the last croquette, filling the air with wafts of nutty truffles. "Some say that truffles taste like the forest floor, but some say they taste like the human body," said Kelly, as she stabbed an egg yolk, releasing a thick yellow goo all over the pizza. She pulled a piece onto her plate. "Oh yeah, I wrote a story on this," said Ben. "Feet, body odor... sex. Truffles have a particular form of stink that attracts people in an animalistic way--- it's what explains why people will pay so much money for even the slightest hint of truffle." Cassie pulled a slice of truffle from the pie and put it on her tongue. Certainly nutty, cool, crunchy... but sex? She didn't get it. She shrugged and took another bite.”

PizzaDuckFlavorsButterAphrodisiacTrufflesFigCroquettes
Book:Eat Post Like
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“Oh, that's a good one," I responded to the zingy and aromatic Southampton tea truffle, picking up on hints of apricot in the Ceylon tea. "Heaven," I moaned, gripping the marble countertop where she mixed and tempered her bonbons, after tasting the strawberry balsamic truffle, made with strawberry purée, eight-year-old La Vecchia Dispensa Italian balsamic vinegar, and 66 percent dark chocolate, which was then dusted with freeze-dried strawberry powder.”

FlavorsDessertsTrufflesSampling
Book:Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light
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“After completing her work for Monsieur, she made some of the specialties she'd developed at her shop in Amalfi, including her gianduiotto, raspberry truffles, and lemon-shaped sfusato amalfitano truffles dusted with sea salt. She tucked these into gold paper-covered boxes, along with her delicately flavored violet truffles, the blood orange and roasted pistachio truffles, and the basil, mint, and limoncello in dark chocolate. On the top layer, she nestled her chocolate stars.”

ItalianFlavorsChocolatesTrufflesFillings
Book:The Chocolatier
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“Inspired by the traditions of Piedmont comes a handcrafted, milk chocolate gianduiotto truffle speckled with roasted hazelnuts. This is to honor my late husband's family, the Savoias." When Sara and Carmine sampled the truffles and nodded their approval, Celina breathed a sigh of relief. "Next, we'll sample the sweet lemon flavor of sfusato amalfitano, formed in the shape of lemons and dusted with sea salt to enhance the flavor." After explaining her inspiration for this local favorite and receiving approval, she gestured to Karin and moved on to the next one. "This one is a twist on basil, mint, and limoncello. These flavors are enrobed in rich, dark Venezuelan chocolate. I import the cacao beans and roast them downstairs in my kitchen." Surprise crossed a few faces, followed with growing delight. Celina continued. "Next, you'll sample a truffle infused with blood orange and topped with roasted pistachios from Sicily, and sweetened with Madagascar vanilla.”

ItalianFlavorsChocolatesTrufflesSamples
Book:The Chocolatier
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“Wait until the truffles hit the dining room---absolute sex," said Scott. When the truffles arrived the paintings leaned off the walls toward them. They were the grand trumpets of winter, heralding excess against the poverty of the landscape. The black ones came first and the cooks packed them up in plastic quart containers with Arborio rice to keep them dry. They promised to make us risotto with the infused rice once the truffles were gone. The white ones came later, looking like galactic fungus. They immediately went into the safe in Chef's office. "In a safe? Really?" "The trouble we take is in direct proportion to the trouble they take. They are impossible," Simone said under her breath while Chef went over the specials. "They can't be that impossible if they are on restaurant menus all over town." I caught her eye. "I'm kidding." "You can't cultivate them. The farmers used to take female pigs out into the countryside, lead them to the oaks, and pray. They don't use pigs anymore, they use well-behaved dogs. But they still walk and hope." "What happened to the female pigs?" Simone smiled. "The scent smells like testosterone to them. It drives them wild. They destroyed the land and the truffles because they would get so frenzied." I waited at the service bar for drinks and Sasha came up beside me with a small wooden box. He opened it and there sat the blanched, malignant-looking tuber and a small razor designed specifically for it. The scent infiltrated every corner of the room, heady as opium smoke, drowsing us. Nicky picked up the truffle in his bare hand and delivered it to bar 11. He shaved it from high above the guest's plate. Freshly tilled earth, fields of manure, the forest floor after a rain. I smelled berries, upheaval, mold, sheets sweated through a thousand times. Absolute sex.”

MushroomsScentsAphrodisiacTrufflesEarthy
Book:Sweetbitter
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“We sat around for hours, turning over the mysteries of the universe, giggling like a dorm room full of stoners, all of us seemingly intoxicated by the truffle's powerful pheromones. A new ritual was born, an annual Truffle Fest that stretched on for the better part of a decade across state lines and continental divides. In that time, I've cooked dozens of truffle-larded dishes. Soft scrambled eggs. Scallops and salsify in parchment. Wild mushroom pizza. Butter-bombed risotto. Whole roasted chicken with truffle slices slipped like splinters under the skin. Above all, handmade pasta tossed with melted butter and anointed tableside with truffle- the finest vessel for the tuber's dreamy fragrance.”

Italian CookingTruffles
Book:Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture
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“These truffles were a different thing altogether from the summer truffle he and Benedetta had found earlier in the year. Pale in color and as large as potatoes, they were both awesomely pungent and deeply intoxicating. Gusta and Benedetta threw them into every dish as casually as if they were throwing in parsley, and after a while Bruno did the same. He would never forget the first time they cooked a wild boar with celery and truffles: the dark, almost rank meat and the sulfuric reek of the tuber combined to form a taste that made him shiver. He was aware that Benedetta was deliberately cooking dishes designed to bind him to her. As well as the truffles, there was robiola del bec, a cheese made from the milk of a pregnant ewe, rich in pheromones. There were fiery little diavolilli, strong chile peppers that had been left to dry in the sun. Plates of fried funghi included morsels of Amanita, the ambrosia of the gods, said to be a natural narcotic. He didn't mind. He was doing the same to her: offering her unusual gelati flavored with saffron, the delicate pollen of the crocus flower; elaborate tarts of myrtle and chocolate; salads made with lichens and even acorns from her beloved woods. It was a game they played, based on their intimate appreciation of the taste of each other's bodies, so that the food and the sex became one harmonious whole, and it became impossible to say where eating ended and lovemaking began.”

AphrodisiacFungiTrufflesFood And Sex
Book:The Food of Love
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“It was one of those red-gold early October days, the air crisp and tart as heady as applejack, and even at dawn the sky was the clear, purplish blue that only the finest of autumn days brings. There are maybe three such days in a year. I sang as I lifted my traps, and my voice bounced off the misty banks of the Loire like a challenge. It was the mushroom season, so after I had brought my catch back to the farm and cleaned it out, I took some bread and cheese for breakfast and set out into the woods to hunt for mushrooms. I was always good at that. Still am, to tell the truth, but in those days I had a nose like a truffle pig's. I could smell those mushrooms out, the gray chanterelle and the orange, with its apricot scent, the bolet and the petit rose and the edible puffball and the brown-cap and the blue-cap. Mother always told us to take our mushrooms to the pharmacy to ensure we had not gathered anything poisonous, but I never made a mistake. I knew the meaty scent of the bolet and the dry, earthy smell of the brown-cap mushroom. I knew their haunts and breeding grounds. I was a patient collector.”

AutumnMushroomsNatures BeautyTrufflesTypes
Book:Five Quarters of the Orange
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“It's not just the taste, she will try to explain. The rich dark truffle, flavored with rum; the hint of chili in the blend; the yielding smoothness of the center and the bitterness of the cocoa-powder finish... none of these explain the strange allure of Yanne Charbonneau's chocolate truffles. Perhaps it's the way they make you feel: stronger, perhaps; more powerful; more alert to the sounds and scents of the world; more aware of the colors and textures of things; more aware of yourself; of what's under the skin; of the mouth, of the throat, of the sensitive tongue.”

AwarenessChocolateFlavorsTruffles
Book:The Girl with No Shadow
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“He passed the rutabaga and duck terrine toward me with the tips of his fingers. "Isn't this a little odd?" I wanted to like it, I did. I pushed the ingredients around with my knife and fork, trying to understand it and formulate an opinion. Then Felix swooped in. "Oh, miss. Pardon me, I was helping another table. That's supposed to be served with something else." He looked at Michael Saltz sheepishly, and Michael Saltz turned his toupeed head away. "We added this dish today, and I'm still getting used to serving it. The proper preparation includes just a bit of truffle." He took out a fist-size beige knot from underneath a white napkin. The shavings rained down in ruffled, translucent strands. Felix backed away as I poked my fork through the tangle of truffles, into the terrine. I had read about truffles- their taste, their hormonal, almost sexual aromas, their exorbitant cost- but I had never even seen a truffle in person before, and had a hard time understanding why people paid thousands of dollars an ounce for something so humble-looking. But at Tellicherry, I understood. I melted in my chair. "Mmm..." I couldn't stop saying it. "Mmmm." Michael Saltz, excited too, picked up a large pinch of truffle shavings and held them to his nose. "These are very good. The finest." "Oh God," I said, in a state of delirium. "This makes the dish so much better. Why aren't truffles on everything?" I had forgotten about the funky terrine. Now it was just a vehicle for the magical urgings of the truffle. A few minutes later, Felix came out again. "Here's your next dish, potato pearls with black, green, and crimson caviar in a cauliflower cream nage." The caviar shined like little jewels among the equal-sized potatoes. They bobbed around in the soup, glistening as if illuminated from within. I took a spoonful and in surged a soft, sweet ribbon of cauliflower essence. I popped the caviar eggs one by one. Pop, went one, a silken fishiness. Pop, went another, a sharp, tangy brine. Pop, went a seductive one, dark and mysterious and deep.”

ExpensiveCaviarTrufflesFancy Fancy
Book:Food Whore
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“I pointed at some bright-orange little bells that looked lethal to me. "Are they all edible?" "I would not be serving them to the guests if they weren't," he said. "These chanterelles, they have exquisite taste. These are straw mushrooms." He pointed to a cluster of thin white stalks. "These we call cèpe. These big ones are trumpet royale. And these, morels- although you must never pick these for yourself. The false morels look very similar and can be fatal. Try the chanterelles. You must cook some for your queen. She will approve." "But that thing you were going to buy. How does one cook that?" It looked like a dirty ball of earth. He rolled his eyes. "That, chérie, is worth more per gram than gold. It is a truffle. You do not have truffles?" "No." "Then let me instruct you. The truffle is a fungus that grows on the roots of certain oak trees. Under the soil, you understand. They can only be located by specially trained dogs, oh, and by pigs if they can get at them. They have a deliciously different flavor. We make the truffle oil for cooking, or we use a small amount to raise the quality of the dish.”

MushroomsTruffles
Book:Above the Bay of Angels
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“I picked one of the black dirt-encrusted beauties up and breathed in its earthy, sensual scent. This gift of gourmet delights, worth its weight in gold, was clearly delivered by the cooking gods. "D'Artagnan and Aramis are not only hunting dogs, they're wildly talented truffle trackers,"said Phillipa. Thanks to the Times, I knew dogs had mostly replaced pigs years ago on the quest for truffles because they were easier to train and didn't chow down on the fungus after they found it.”

HuntingDogsTruffles
Book:The Secret French Recipes of Sophie Valroux
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“Getting to know Sabrina reminded him of the first time he had tasted truffles. With their robust and pungent flavor, truffles were an acquired taste, but with each new truffle experience, the more interesting they became, the more he discovered the nuanced and earthy notes. The truffle had always been perfect; it had been his taste buds that had to evolve. Sabrina was like that- he knew time would unveil fascinating and complex depths that most people never appreciated. He couldn't wait.”

TrufflesDepths
Book:The Kindred Spirits Supper Club
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“While Lisa prepared lunch, I took it upon myself to smell each and every truffle we'd found that morning. Some were sweet and firm, and some smelled more of vinegar--- maybe they were under-ripe. Some were grassy, herblike. There were mineral elements--- quartz and slate. As I went through the pile, the associations mounted. Did I smell pine needles? Blueberries? The more I sniffed, the weirder it became. What did that sweet starchy smell remind me of? That's it--- the beginning of a good rice pudding. Lisa was cleaning the truffles with what looked like a boot brush, and as she massaged gently, the chocolate-colored soil gave way to cratered geological black; the truffle looked like a tiny meteor.”

GeographyScentsTruffles
Book:Picnic in Provence: A Memoir with Recipes
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“The next dish arrived, a small bowl of morels cooked in brown butter served with maitake mushroom broth, complex and unctuous. The morels were harvested the year before, pickled and preserved, and served with a hand-carved appetizer fork. The concentration of flavor brought images of the woods to her mind, from the mossy forest floor to the tree canopy high above. This dish was followed by marigold flowers fried in an incredibly light tempura and then salted, served with an egg yolk dipping sauce. Then walnut "tofu," surrounded by grilled rose petals, topped with a sunflower seed mole, herbs, and tiny flowers, and a caramelized milk tart stuffed with cheese and thinly sliced black truffles, the flavor nutty and savory. "That's better than sex," Cassie overheard Eamon say from across the table, eyes closed and head back in rapture.”

MushroomsAphrodisiacTrufflesFermentationCopenhagenPlant Based FoodsMorel
Book:Eat Post Like
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“A connoisseur of gastronomy was congratulated on his appointment as a director of indirect contributions at Periguex: and, above all, in the pleasure there would be in living in the midst of good cheer, in the country of truffles, partridges, truffled turkeys, and so forth. "Alas!" replied with a sigh the sad gastronomer, "can one really live at all in a country where there is no fresh sea-fish?"”

CountryWould BePleasureSeaFoodDirectorsFishesContributionMidstCheerSighAlasTurkeysAppointmentsIndirectConnoisseurGood CheerTruffles
Author:Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
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“A white truffle, which elsewhere might sell for hundreds of dollars, seemed easier to come by than something fresh and green. What could be got from the woods was free and amounted to a diurnal dining diary that everyone kept in their heads. May was wild asparagus, arugula, and artichokes. June was wild lettuce and stinging nettles. July was cherries and wild strawberries. August was forest berries. September was porcini.”

MayMightWhiteFoodEasierGreenSellsCookingDollarsWoodsForestsCulinaryElsewhereSeptemberDiariesJuneJulyAugustCherriesBerriesDiningStrawberriesLettuceTrufflesAsparagusNettlesArtichokesWild StrawberriesArugula
Author:Bill Buford
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“Give me a platter of choice finnan haddie, freshly cooked in its bath of water and milk, add melted butter, a slice or two of hot toast, a pot of steaming Darjeeling tea, and you may tell the butler to dispense with the caviar, truffles and nightingales' tongues.”

GivingMayTwoChoicesWaterFoodGive MeHotCookingAddTongueTeaCulinaryPotMilkBathsToastsButlersNightingalesCaviarTruffles
Book:Craig Claiborne's New York Times Food Encyclopedia
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“A different set of incentives from rising in an economic establishment where the rewards system, again, the reinforcement, comes from being a truffle hound. That's what Jacob Viner, the great economist called it: the truffle hound - an animal so bred and trained for one narrow purpose that he wasn't much good at anything else, and that is the reward system in a lot of academic departments.”

DifferentPurposeAnimalEconomicRewardsRisingDepartmentEstablishmentAcademicEconomistIncentivesJacobHoundsReinforcementTruffles
Author:Charlie Munger
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“Choices are funny things-ask a native tribe that's eaten grubs and roots forever if they're unhappy, and they'll shrug. But give them filet mignon and truffle sauce and then ask them to go back to living off the land, and they will always be thinking of that gourmet meal. If you don't know there's an alternative, you can't miss it.”

IfsThinkingKnowsGivingChoicesAsksForeverLandMissingRootsUnhappyAlternativesMealsNativeTribesFunny ThingsSauceGourmetTrufflesFilet Mignon
Book:Handle with Care: A Novel
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“You look beautiful in this dress." "And yet you're trying to take it off." "You know that look that Jessica gets when she unwraps one of her truffles?" he asked. "Like she fell into a pool of chocolate with Keanu Reeves and Hugh Jackman swimming toward her?" He looked at me, his lips quirking. "Have that fantasy often?" Heh. Who, me? "Nope. Why would I, when I have you?" "Nice recovery.”

KnowsTryingLooksBeautifulFantasyNiceDressesLipsRecoveryChocolateSwimmingPoolJessicaTrufflesYou Look Beautiful
Book:Over My Dead Body
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“What kind of tea do you want?" "There´s more than one kind of tea?...What do you have?" "Let´s see... Blueberry, Raspberry, Ginseng, Sleepytime, Green Tea, Green Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Lemon and Honey, Liver Disaster, Ginger with Honey, Ginger Without Honey, Vanilla Almond, White Truffle Coconut, Chamomile, Blueberry Chamomile, Decaf Vanilla Walnut, Constant Comment and Earl Grey." -"I.. Uh...What are you having?... Did you make some of those up?”

WantKindWhiteGreenConstantDisasterTeaCommentHoneyGreyLemonsLiverVanillaGingerCoconutsAlmondsTrufflesBlueberriesWalnutsRaspberriesGreen Tea
Author:Bryan Lee O'Malley
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