This trip, Ken and I were going to eat a fancy-pants meal on the Isle de St. Louis, and I really only had one goal: try my very first truffle, those hundreds-of-dollars-per-pound delicacies famed for growing under the certain trees and one that cannot be cultivated but rather must choose life like some little Republican embryonic 'shroom. But it was not to be; alas, on Friday night, we had snacked too late on all things delicious and French and knew we couldn’t eat a four-course meal; on Saturday night, we were too tired and I had the tummy waggles, only for a brief period of time that occurred during eating-a-fancypants-French-dinner time, meaning late. And on Sunday, by the time we got downtown it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner and we were flying out that night. Rats...
Ah, but all was not lost, because when we flew to Croatia, I learned some truffle facts that are very, very interesting--to me anyway. First, while the "black truffle" of France is supposed to be delicious and runs somewhere around $300/lb., the Croatian white truffle is even more of a delicacy and often runs more than $1000/lb. "But how can I ever afford to eat even one bite?" I whined to Sandra Sibley, the very nice woman who took me around Zagreb on our first full day. She knew a place...
And so we went to a fancy-pants restaurant in Zagreb, Croatia, where we sat out on a terrace on a beautiful day in a beautiful city in a beautiful country and ate a beautiful risotto with white truffles. Wow. My meal cost only 22 kunas, around five dollars. How did it taste? Great, for real, not like people saying they love caviar but they don't, because c'mon, it's fish eggs, and they look like Nemo's siblings. Risotto, the national dish of Croatia, is on many, many menus, and this truffle dish tasted quite a bit like a yummy stroganoff.
So here are some more truffle facts for you (you know you want them):
1. The greatest delicacy for a long period of time was a truffled turkey. "I have wept three times in my life," the composer Rossini admitted. "Once when my first opera failed. Once again, the first time I heard Paganini play the violin. And once when a truffled turkey fell overboard at a boating picnic."
2. A single (very large) truffle once sold for 160,000 dollars.
3. Karen has now eaten them, and she liked the dish she ate very much.
3 comments:
Truffles are yummy, but I resent the idea that no one likes caviar. Sarah likes caviar (at least, she likes some caviar...) So there. If you wanna fight me, I guess you'll have to come home to do it, woman.
OK, I will pummel you with pigs' feet, balut, and paté, all delicacies that other liars, I mean people have said tasted good and encouraged me to try! :)
I happen to love love love love caviar. Black, though, not red. And remember when Tara had the truffle salad at the Hotel Fancee Shmancee in Paris on my honeymoon? Twas the best thing I have ever tasted.
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