(ANSA) - Two Italian truffle auctions the past weekend have sparked a feeding frenzy for the famed tuber. On Saturday night, at a Medici residence in Tuscany which once hosted Michelangelo, prized white truffles were offered to bidders from all over the world.
A truffle weighing 1.2kg (2.6 pounds) has sold for 95,000 euros ($112,000; £64,000). An anonymous buyer - reportedly from Hong-Kong - purchased the white truffle via satellite link-up
Satellite hook-ups connected the country house at Cafaggilo with auction rooms in England and Germany. On Sunday it was the turn of the queen of truffles, the famed white from Alba in Piedmont.
White truffles are rarer, more pungent and more expensive than black ones. They have a shorter growing season, in the three months around Christmas. Blacks are more common in the centre and south, whites in the north.
The seventh edition of the Alba Truffle Auction, staged at the magnificent Grinzane Cavour castle near Turin, was
beamed to bidders as far afield as London, New York and Hong Kong.
Last year's edition produced a then-record price of 41,000 dollars for a 1.1 kg monster, snapped up after a fierce battle with Russian bidders by Italo-American restaurateur Francesco Giambelli, owner of Giambelli 50th on New York's East Side.
It was the largest truffle ever sold.
But the Cafaggilo event, soon afterwards, set a new record of 52,000 dollars for an 850-gramme tuber landed by a restaurant consortium in London including Madonna and her husband Guy Richie.
But the Zafferano restaurant left its prize outside in the cold and it began to suffer from truffle rot. It was shipped back to Italy for a gala funeral last December. The auctions in Tuscany and Alba have added to truffle mania since the late 1990s. Proceeds go to a charitable foundation run by the late Gianni Agnelli's sister Susanna and an Italian cancer research institute.
As well as providing uplinks for the charity auctions, the web is also feeding the worldwide truffle market.
A so-called Truffle Bourse can be accessed at www.albatartufi.com, where you can look at quotes for the main varieties of the white tuber, receive advice from trifoleaux (truffle experts) and get wind of all the
promotional events for the underground gems.
Then, at www.acqualegna.info, black truffle fans can take part in discussions on their favourite fungus and receive updates on the latest truffle prices. The website, set up by the Marche town of Acqualegna,
one of central Italy's prime truffle sites along with others in Tuscany, Umbria and Abruzzo, will also give potential investors hints on buying truffle-rich land.
White truffles are not only found in their northern heartland but also in places like Tuscany.
On Saturday Italy's first Truffle Museum, opened last year outside Siena, unveilrd a new 'documentation centre' with multimedia stations where visitors can trace Italy's truffle map and watch films of truffle hunting, truffle cooking and truffle eating.
The Museum, at the town of San Giovanni d'Asso, will stage a white truffle sale from November 12 to 20 with asking
prices starting off at around 1,000 euros. "This year's truffles will be high quality but not quite as sharp-smelling as other years," said Gianfranco Berni, president of the Siena trifoleux.
"The high humidity of the last few weeks has ensured a bumper crop," he added.
That's good news for fans of the delicacy, which has become harder to find over the past few years. Nestling in the roots of about 50 trees - mostly oaks but also hazels, poplars, mulberries and willows - truffles are rooted out by specially trained dogs.
With demand shooting up over recent years, hunters have become increasingly competitive and there have even been reports of skulduggery such as hamstringing or even poisoning the champion dogs of rivals.
Some of the northern and central fields have been exhausted, partly because of poachers who sell their catches on the black market. But new areas are emerging, such as the upper reaches of the Tiber, Abruzzo and the Pollino National Park in Calabria.
Once you've found your truffle, here's what to do with it, according to Italian superchef Annie Feolde: "Clean it thoroughly with a pointy knife and a little brush, cut it into wafer-thin slivers and heat them up in marinated butter and a little water from boiled vegetables.
"Then spread the mixture over your piping hot tagliolini and you'll see the steam complete the symphony."
Top Tuscan chef Aldo Fiorelli says "you can grate your truffle directly onto your pasta. True aficionados use truffles weighing around 100 grammes. Getting your hands dirty isn't frowned on - quite the opposite, in fact. It makes the experience more convivial and orgiastic."
