Alba Truffle Festival.

After a weekend of eating, drinking, dancing, sleeping, freezing, walking and eating in Turino, we drove to Alba for the 80th anniversary of the White Truffle Festival. Saturday was the first day of celebrations surrounding the aphrodisiac tuber and we were there on Sunday. It was a rainy day, a very appropriate start to autumn as we bundled up and huddled under umbrellas. Even as the sky cleared and the umbrellas were put away as the mass of people in the narrow cobblestone streets made walking impossible, the skies maintained their cloudy grey overcast. But that didn't stop the spirit of the festival.  

Medieval Games - 1 Euro to win a
bottle of local wine.

busy town of Alba

Sunday, the 17th of October, was The Village Recalls its Origins Day where the medieval history, traditions, and jobs of Alba were reinacted and retold through games and culinary tastings. People crowded into the town and local residents dressed up in traditional medieval costumes enthusiastically rallied guests to play games to win prizes - mostly bottles of wine - and offered specialty foods like polenta with gorgonzola or topped with stewed meat, grilled ribs and sausages on fire-smoked grills, bottles of local Dolcettas, Barberas and Barbaresco's to share, chocolate and sugar covered wine-grapes, Piedmontese cheeses galore, pork of all sorts of pieces including the entire head,  and of course truffles - alone, on cheese, on eggs, on pasta, in honey, in jars, on anything you could possibly want. The medieval atmosphere of the town was at first a bit cheesey, surprising almost, but it created a unique conviviality that everyone could partake in and enjoy. It only served to reinforce the history and cultural pride the town has with this sought-after, lustful food of the gods.

simple buttered spaghetti with shaved truffles.
appropriate with plastic forks.

filette di tartuf. truffles in any and all sorts of shapes and sizes.

shaved truffles on eggs and cheese. basic & indulgent.

Making polenta. Adorable.

I love Cheese. I bought a (stinky) 2.5 years old cheese.
two and a half years!! definite animal sensation.

pig heads and costumes and weirdness = totally normal.

What makes the white truffle so unique to Alba is that it demands certain environmental conditions for growing which Alba so generously offers. The makeup of the soil determines the humidity, the porosity, the organic matter, relative pH levels, and texture for rooting; the climate condition determines the sun exposure, the amount of summer rains, the shelter of winds, the surrounding growth of flora and fauna; and the area determinesand the type of neighbouring tree the truffles grow under and the appropriate level above sea whether its in a hill or a valley. Alba exudes the perfection required for the white truffle and therefore, as the oldest truffle market, can determine the quality and the prices sold. http://goo.gl/R6pb