Black Winter Melanosporum

Black winter truffles, also known as Périgord truffles. Périgord truffle is normally round, and slightly bumpy. The flesh is noir/violet at maturity, with fine veins that are well marked and divided. White when cut open, the flesh turns red on contact with air. It grows in hilly areas in symbiosis with hazelnut and oak trees.  To the nose the perfume is of a dry mushroom, humus, and wet forests. In the mouth the truffle is crunchy and soft simultaneously; at first spicy with a slight taste of black radish, then a hint of hazelnut, with a finish of wooded forest floor, sometimes earth when tasting the skin.

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• Peridium: warty, formed by small and not very prominent warts, of black color.

• Glebe: black-purplish in mature specimens, with white and smooth veins, which tend to become reddish in the air and disappear while cooking.

• Shape: usually round, but even irregular or lobed.

• Dimensions: variable, from the size of a hazelnut to that of an orange, rarely bigger.

• Maturation period: from November to March.

• The black truffle in the kitchen: has a sweet scent and a tasty flavor, which are a good fit for cooking and garnish for meat as second plate.

• How to recognize it: by the small and not very prominent warts of the peridium, by the dark color with purple hues of the glebe and the sweet scent.