black trumpet mushroom, Craterellus cornucopioides, aka the trumpet of death or horn of plenty. A wild mushroom known for its rich, smoky flavor and floral aroma.
brûlé, the French word for “burned,” used to describe the ground above an active truffle patch. The fungus suppresses grass and weeds, giving the bare soil a scorched appearance.
button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus. The most commonly cultivated mushroom variety. It grows in two colors. The white strain is the normal grocery-store mushroom, also called champignons de Paris. The brown is often sold as cremini when young and portobello when large. Blander than other cultivated species.
buy station. A commercial mushroom broker will set up satellite outposts in various mushroom-growing regions so that his buyers can be close to the action. Mushroom pickers, who almost always work freelance, show up to these stations to sell their harvest to the broker’s rep.
candy cap mushroom, Lactarius fragilis, has little aroma when fresh, but smells like maple syrup when dried.
caviar is salted sturgeon roe, or eggs. It ranges in color from pale gray to black, and in general darker colors have a richer flavor. Caviar is expensive and labeling practices can be deceptive, so the consumer has to be educated. By law, the label must name the species.
Beluga comes from the endangered giant Caspian sturgeon, Huso huso, and is strictly illegal under U.S. law and by international convention.
Osetra, from the species Acipenser gueldenstaedtii, has the second-largest grain size after beluga. In my opinion osetra is the best available caviar option. This species is also critically endangered in the wild but is farm-raised in Bulgaria, Israel, Belgium, and elsewhere in Europe. There is no such thing as American osetra caviar—the species isn’t raised here, although there have been several poor attempts at it.
The best domestic U.S. caviar comes from farm-raised white sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus, a native North American species.
The most commonly raised caviar species in the world is the fast-growing Siberian sturgeon, Acipenser baerii. It matures to harvest in five years compared to as long as ten to twelve years for some other species.
Acipenser stellatus produces sevruga. Like the beluga and osetra sturgeon, this species is critically endangered in the wild. Farmed sevruga is small-grained and has a high salt content—a salt bomb.
Kaluga caviar, from the huge and nearly extinct Chinese sturgeon, Huso dauricus, has been banned in the United States.
Pale golden caviar is a natural rarity, about 5 percent of the harvest. The most “buttery” of all caviar.
Salted roes from other fish species—such as flying fish, salmon, steelhead trout, and paddlefish—come in colors from pale green to bright orange-red and are also loosely called caviar.
Borax, an odorless white powder used in clothing detergent, is sometimes added to caviar to improve its texture. Unfortunately, it also comes with potentially serious health risks and imparts a weird aftertaste. Pseudonyms include sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, and disodium tetraborate. Check the label, and avoid borax at all costs.
chanterelles are a family of commercially significant wild mushrooms. The golden or yellow chanterelle, Cantharellus cibarius, is probably the most common wild mushroom on restaurant menus. It has a rich, strong flavor and is incredibly versatile.
CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, bans the sale of caviar from beluga and other wild sturgeon species.
EVOO is chef’s shorthand for extra-virgin olive oil.
foie gras is the fattened liver of a duck or a goose. It can be seared, poached (foie gras au torchon in classical French cuisine), or preserved as pâté. Commercially available foie gras is sometimes dyed yellow because that’s how chefs think it should look.
foraged edibles are exactly what they sound like: mushrooms and plants gathered in the wild from uncultivated sources. Chef René Redzepi’s Copenhagen restaurant Noma, a repeat number one on the 50 Best Restaurants List, established a global trend for wild foods. Good books for learning about wild edibles in the United States include:
• Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons. The classic.
• Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast by Hank Shaw. A new classic.
• Foraged Flavor by Tama Matsuoka Wong and Eddy Leroux. The chef’s perspective on how to source and prepare wild edibles.
fruiting body is the part of a mushroom or truffle we eat. See mushroom.
fungus. Neither animal, vegetable, nor bacteria, the fungi belong to their own kingdom of life, the broadest taxonomic category. They include single-cell yeasts and molds as well as multicellular mushrooms and truffles. A unique feature of the fungi is that their cell walls contain chitin, the same material that makes up lobster shells and butterfly wings—it’s what gives mushrooms their structure. The fungi are decomposers, and they’re globally ubiquitous. They’re also incredibly important for humans. Apart from mushrooms and truffles that we eat directly, fungal activity in the form of fermentation has been used by man for millennia to make bread, wine, beer, cheese, pickles, soy sauce—a nearly endless list of foods from around the world.
gleba. A truffle’s interior.
hedgehog mushroom, Hydnum repandum, is a commercially significant species in the Pacific Northwest. The harvest runs from January through March, when hedgehogs stand in for the out-of-season chanterelle.
host tree. See mycorrhiza.
Kobe beef. See Wagyu.
maitake or hen-of-the-woods, Grifola frondosa, is a wild mushroom that grows in clusters at the base of trees. When roasted, it develops an earthy, meaty flavor and a crisp texture. Maitake is also commercially cultivated and quite delicious.
matsutake or pine mushroom, Tricholoma matsutak, grows up to a foot tall, and when cooked has a meaty texture like a portobello and a delicate cinnamon-pine aroma. Esteemed in Japan, where their phallic shape gives them a reputation as nature’s Viagra.
Michelin, the French tire company, publishes a closely watched series of restaurant guides that rank restaurants on a star system. The coveted Michelin three-star ranking is bestowed on a small handful of restaurants around the world.
morel is any of several commercially valuable species of wild mushroom that grow across the northern hemisphere, including Morchella esculenta, the blond morel. Popping up in late spring through midsummer, they are instantly recognizable for their pointy, conical caps covered in ridges that form a honeycomb pattern. This meaty mushroom is prized for its unique flavor, which is nutty and earthy, like dirt in the woods, with notes of cedar and brown butter. Fresh morels can be sautéed, roasted, stuffed, fried, or dried for later use. Delicious in every form. In India, morels foraged in the Himalayan foothills are called guchhi.
mushroom is the fruiting body of a fungus, its reproductive mechanism. Mushrooms produce spores, which are the fungal equivalent of seeds. Wild mushrooms have been gathered for food by numerous cultures around the world since time immemorial. Some of them are delicious. Others produce chemicals that are poisonous. A few, the magic mushrooms, produce psychoactive compounds that cause euphoria, sensory hyperacuity, and feelings of spiritual insight. And still others can be antibiotic and even bioluminescent—they glow in the dark.
mycologist is a scientist who studies fungi.
mycorrhiza (plural: mycorrhizae) is a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and a vascular plant. Basically, the fungus’s tiny rootlets extract minerals and other nutrients from the soil and transfer them to the plant, and in return the plant “feeds” the fungus with sugars manufactured in its leaves through photosynthesis. The relationship can also be called a mycorrhizal association. Mycorrhizal fungi include truffles, morels, matsutake, and other edible mushrooms that colonize with the roots of species-specific host trees.
New York Times restaurant reviews are closely followed by Manhattan chefs and restaurant-goers. The paper uses a star-based ranking system, although unlike the Michelin guide with its three stars, the most coveted Times award is a four-star review.
olive oil can be produced from many varieties of olives. Virgin is a legal designation established by the International Olive Council (IOC) meaning that the oil has been extracted by mechanical means only (such as crushing or milling) without chemical solvents or heat. Virgin oils are sometimes marketed as cold pressed or first pressing. The term extra-virgin olive oil—chefs call it EVOO—applies to mechanically extracted oils that meet certain technical standards and also pass a tasting panel of judges. Extra virgin oil has to be judged superior on all counts and free from any noticeable defects.
The pulp left over after the virgin pressing can be extracted a second time using heat or chemicals to produce pomace oil. Don’t touch it; it’s disgusting.
Fraud is rampant in the olive oil industry. It’s common practice for oil to be produced in one country, then shipped to Italy where it’s relabeled as “Italian.” Cheap pomace oil and even seed oils (such as sunflower seed oil) can be doctored with coloring and flavoring and passed off as extra-virgin. There’s a high likelihood that any cheap “extra-virgin oil” sold at the supermarket has been adulterated in some way. Real extra-virgin oil is expensive and is best used for finishing a dish. Good quality virgin oil is used for cooking and frying.
The definitive book on olive oil and fraud within the industry is Tom Mueller’s Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil.
peridium is the exterior of a truffle, its “skin.”
porcini, cèpe, or king bolete, Boletus edulis, is one of the most delicious wild mushrooms. They can weigh up to a couple of pounds; the largest ever was the size of a serving platter and weighed seven pounds. Porcini can be sliced and sautéed, used for risotto and pasta, or dried. Large specimens can be cut into steaks and grilled. Among all the wild mushrooms, porcini is the king of umami.
ramps, Allium tricoccum, often called wild leeks, actually taste much, much stronger—a powerful cross of garlic and onions with an added wild pungency. The entire plant is edible, both bulb and leaves, and it’s incredibly versatile in the kitchen. Ramp pesto and pickled ramps are standard preparations.
saffron, the most expensive spice in the world, is the dried orange-red stigma of the Crocus sativus flower. The stigmas have to be gathered by hand, and it takes 70,000 flowers to produce one pound of saffron threads. The best saffron comes from Iran, and it can cost sixty-five dollars per gram. Cheap grocery-store saffron lacks flavor and derives its color from turmeric or other dyes.
spore is a fungal “seed.”
terroir comes from the French terre, which can be translated as “earth,” “ground,” or “soil.” It’s a winemaker’s term that loosely means “a sense of place,” and it refers to the effect of location, microclimate, and soil conditions on grapes. Truffles also have terroir. Within a single species, the aroma, shape, and color of an individual truffle vary depending on where it comes from—it expresses a sense of place.
truffière. French for “truffle orchard,” a plantation of oak or hazelnut trees that have been inoculated with the truffle organism.
truffle. Truffe in French, tartufo in Italian, and trufa in Spanish. A group of subterranean fungi that live in mycorrhizal association with the roots of certain host trees. Most edible truffles belong to the genus Tuber. The truffle is the king of the mushroom world, and certain species are revered for their powerful aromas.
The truffle—the part we eat—is the fruiting body. Its exterior, its “skin,” is the peridium. The interior is the gleba. A ripe truffle produces aromatic compounds to attract animals that will spread its spores by eating it.
The proper way to store a truffle is wrapped in a paper towel to absorb excess moisture and stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator. Don’t wrap the truffle in plastic or it will sweat and spoil.
Truffles have a shelf life of a week to two weeks, depending on the species, but by the time you get it, it’s already been out of the ground for several days, at least. Plan to use a truffle the same day you buy it, or as soon as possible.
Truffles can also be used to aromatize certain products, such as butter, honey, oil, and salt. Eggs can also be “truffleized” by storing them in a sealed container with whole truffles. Contrary to popular belief, storing truffles in rice is a terrible idea. The rice will dry out the truffle, killing it, and whatever flavor the rice absorbs will be destroyed by cooking.
Black truffles and summer truffles can be canned or used in canned products such as pâté, but preserved truffle products (which shops in Italy advertise as “prodotti tradizionale”) will always be much less potent than fresh truffles.
The truffle species with culinary and commercial importance include:
Tuber aestivum, the summer truffle or Burgundy truffle. Once thought to be two species, both the summer truffle and the Burgundy truffle have a moderately strong truffle aroma with a distinctive hazelnut note. Burgundy truffles, which mature in the fall, are more pungent. T. aestivum is commercially harvested across southern Europe, although its range extends as far north as Scandinavia and England.
Tuber magnatum (pico), the European winter white truffle, is often considered the supreme truffle. This wild species has never been successfully cultivated, which is part of the reason its cost can run to a whopping $5,000 per pound retail, making it the most expensive (legal) food in the world. White truffles are often called Italian truffles or Alba truffles, after a town in northern Italy, but in fact their range spreads into Eastern Europe and the Balkan Peninsula. Some—probably many or even most—of the white truffles sold around the world originate outside of Italy. White truffles are never cooked. They are shaved raw over pasta, risotto, or a handful of other dishes such as seared scallops and cauliflower velouté. The aroma is cheesy, garlicky, funky, explosive.
Tuber melanosporum, the European winter black truffle, is second only to white truffles in culinary value. Unlike the white, however, black truffles have been cultivated for over two hundred years. Today they are commercially grown in orchards, or truffières, in Spain, France, Australia, and New Zealand. Experimental orchards in the United States have also produced truffles. Black truffles can be cooked and even canned. They are a key ingredient in classical French haute cuisine and as much a part of the French culinary heritage as stinky cheese and fine wine. They are often known as the French or Périgord truffle, after a region in southwest France. The black truffle’s aroma lacks the garlicky and Parmesan-cheese notes of white truffle, but in return it’s earthy, musty, nutty, funky, and even chocolaty with hints of dried mushrooms and greasy cured meats. Brillat-Savarin called them “diamonds of the kitchen.”
Tuber uncinatum is an outdated name for Burgundy truffle, which genetic testing has shown to be the same species as summer truffle.
Other truffles include:
Tuber borchii, the bianchetti truffle, or “little white” in Italian. A secondary Italian white truffle, less potent than T. magnatum and of much less commercial significance.
Tuber brumale, the musky or winter truffle. A minor edible truffle. It has a mild truffle aroma with maybe a whiff of rubber, but I think it smells quite pleasant with its additional notes of fresh grass. Looks like T. melanosporum.
Tuber indicum, the Chinese truffle. The scourge of the truffle industry, because it’s virtually indistinguishable from T. melanosporum but lacks all aroma. Chinese truffles are imported to Europe to “cut” shipments of melanosporum, the way drug dealers cut pure cocaine with baking soda. The most deceptive “counterfeit” black truffle.
Tuber macrosporum, the smooth black truffle. A minor species but its unique scent blends the white truffle’s garlicky qualities with the black truffle’s earthiness—the best of both worlds.
Tuber mesentericum, the Bagnoli truffle. Another “counterfeit” black truffle that can be distinguished from T. melanosporum by its gasoline odor and red-orange interior.
Tuber oregonense and Tuber gibbosum are two Oregon white truffles, native North American species. They are underappreciated by chefs despite their culinary potential. Ripe specimens are moderately truffley, with a captivating tree-resin undertone that smells like the Oregon rain forest. (Incidentally, the Oregon winter black truffle, Leucangium carthusianum, has a unique, almost fruity aroma of ripe bananas and pineapples that goes perfectly with desserts, including chocolate.)
truffle dog, truffle pig. Any species of dog can be trained to identify and locate the smell of a ripe truffle. Truffle pigs, which aren’t used much anymore, hunt them by instinct.
truffle oil on retail shelves has almost never seen a truffle. It’s all flavored with “truffle essence,” a compound synthesized from petrochemicals. That’s right: Commercial truffle oil is a petroleum product. Don’t waste your money.
umami is a word chefs use a lot these days, but it’s a relatively recent addition to the Western world’s kitchen vocabulary. (The 1999 edition of the exhaustive Oxford Companion to Food doesn’t have a separate listing for umami.) Umami is the so-called fifth taste along with sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. A Japanese chemist “discovered” umami in 1908 when he realized that stock made from kombu, dried kelp, was rich in glutamates, a flavor booster. (As a result, companies started to manufacture monosodium glutamate—MSG.) Western scientists remained skeptical that umami existed until a study published by USC–San Diego researchers in 2001 proved its existence. The Japanese words roughly translates as “delicious,” and it refers to the meaty, savory, brothy quality of umami-rich foods such as dashi, soup stock, made from kombu and katsuobushi, shaved cured tuna or bonito flakes. Familiar Western ingredients that supply umami include dried mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, tomatoes, aged ham, anchovies, and fermented foods. Umami is why ketchup and Worcestershire sauce make everything taste good.
uni is the Japanese word for “sea urchin.” The parts we eat—the bright orange-red, creamy, iodine-tasting lobes—are actually the creature’s gonads.
Wagyu literally translates as “Japanese cow.” Wagyu beef goes back to an ancient breed of cattle called Kuroge Washu, a breed with the unique ability to store fat in its muscle tissue. As a result, Wagyu beef is incredibly fatty and rich. Wagyu is graded on a five-point scale, with A5 being the best. A twelve-point sub-category measures fat content: A5-12, which designates 90 percent fat content, is supreme. Kobe beef comes from a Wagyu animal raised in Japan’s Hyogo prefecture. Government regulation protects the name, in the same way that Champagne and Vidalia onions are legally defined agricultural brands. The popular stories about Kobe beef producers massaging their cattle or feeding them beer are myth. Most “Kobe” beef found on menus was raised in Australia or the United States, and it’s most often the product of a Wagyu-Angus hybrid.
wasabi. Wasabi is the rhizome of a Japanese plant native to streambeds and creek banks, Eutrema japonicum, aka Wasabia japonica. It belongs to the brassica family, which also includes mustard and horseradish. Like its relatives, grated wasabi produces an intense nasally heat. Real wasabi is extremely difficult to cultivate, and there are only a handful of farms in the United States that have succeeded. Ninety-eight percent of all “wasabi” sold in the United States is actually a blend of horseradish, hot mustard, and green coloring. Real wasabi is grated to order, traditionally on a tool made of dried sharkskin, and the paste loses its pure stinging heat within half an hour. Whole wasabi root costs $150 per pound at retail. The two main wasabi cultivars are daruma, the more pungent, and mazuma.
World’s 50 Best Restaurants is a list compiled annually by Restaurant magazine and has challenged—and some would say displaced—the Michelin guide as the most influential restaurant ranking system in the world. Because the ranking is sponsored by San Pellegrino, it’s sometimes called the San Pellegrino list.