From October through December, Alba and the Lange Hills in Italy’s southern Piedmont (Piemonte) region, south of Turin, it’s all about truffles. White truffles, to be exact, the most precious variety, and the second most valuable food by weight – only the highly prized beluga caviar costs more per gram. A few parchment-thin slivers added to a menu item can raise a chef’s overhead by hundreds of dollars in a single evening.
While the chefs gather for the annual truffle auction, and the trifolao (truffle hunters) take their dogs into the misty woods by dark of night, travelers can feast on far more than these pricey funghi. The best place to start a tour of the vineyard-covered hills that lie between Genoa and Milan, is the old Roman town of Alba. Deep inside its historic center, the piazza of Cortile della Maddalena becomes “truffle central” through mid-November.
The square is filled by a huge white tent containing the Alba White Truffle Fair, where chefs meet trifolao and – like the truffle-hunting dogs -- sniff out the best of this year’s harvest. And where the general public can go to breathe in the aromas and sample the foods that make the Piedmont a foodie’s nirvana.
Long rows of booths display and offer samples of the foods for which the Piedmont is famous –- goats’ milk Gorgonzola, salamis and proscuitto from the nearby town of Bra. A cheerful farmer proffers generous bites of Chevrin and Toma cheeses. Hazelnuts, another of the Piedmont’s specialties, are offered toasted, encased in chocolate, baked into rich firm cakes.Scattered among the foods are the booths of the wineries that are scattered through the Langhe Hills, each extolling their virtues and offering tastes.
The fair is a tasty sample of the region’s specialties, but it’s even more fun to drive through the hills seeking the producers. You can taste some of Italy’s best wines here, the Barolo and Barbaresco, or follow a honey trail to try dark chestnut blossom honey and lighter delicate ones from the nectar of spring wildflowers.
It is easy to attend full- or half-day cooking classes or wine tasting lessons at an historic villa, visit the chocolatiers who create delicacies with the locally grown hazelnuts, tour a grappa distillery in Altavilla Monferrato to see how this throat-scorching Italian favorite is made. Cascina del Cornale is a cooperative of farmers in Magliano Alfieri, where you can buy jams, jellies, vinegars, confections made by local farm families, and sample a wondrous array of local cheeses in the farm shop and restaurant.
