For the past few years, truffles lovers have been startled by the pungency of Orgeon Truffles. For decades, the truffles — both black Périgord-style and the white truffle often associated with Italy’s Alba region — have often been pale imitators of their European cousins. But suddenly, the delicacy from the Oregon woods is a contender. One Big Table teamed up with the Oregon Truffle Festival for a recipe contest using the local “gold.” The finalists have been chosen and the competition is stiff.
I’m on my way to Eugene to learn how to hunt with the famed Italian truffle dogs from Blackberry Farm, take a lesson in truffle raking with Jack Czarnecki, the legendary forager, learn about the domestication of truffles from Charles Ruff, the scientist who has changed the face of Oregon truffles, and to choose this year’s winning recipes. The giant leap forward in Oregon truffles comes just in time. This year there is a shortage of white truffles from Alba that has many chefs wringing their hands. Here is a link to a story that CBS morning did on the situation several weeks ago.
Stay tuned for truffle hunting, truffle lore, truffle dogs — and more — over the next few days from the Oregon Truffle Festival.
Table for Two, Norwalk, Connecticut. Photo by Ramin Ganeshram
One Big Table Now & Here
Over the past couple weeks when people ask me, “What is American cooking?” I’ve flashed to the image above. Like any cuisine, American cooking is about place and weather, people and history, tradition and fashion, economics and ethnicity, religion, culture, and class. But unlike any other cuisine that I know of, American cooking is about the persistence of hope.… Read more and see recipes including Larry Yee’s Peruano Beans and Greens, Raw Lemon Kale Salad, Game Hens with Bitter Orange and Olives, Fennel Slaw.
One Big Table is the nation’s community cookbook, the result of my journey of more than 500,000 miles across the U.S.—during which I conducted over 5,000 oral history–style interviews and consumed untold calories—to discover why we eat what we eat.
As part of the ongoing effort to gather and preserve American recipes and food stories, friends, colleagues, and I are building One Big Table Across America, a series of large and small events that celebrate American home cooking, support local agriculture, and prove that community begins when people gather around a table to eat, drink, talk, laugh, think, and dream.
The series kicked off on November 4 with One Big Table at Ellis Island—a celebration of immigration and the American menu.
Over the coming weeks, I’ll be posting recipes of my own and recipes that I’ve gathered—and I hope that you’ll be posting recipes, too. I’ll also be posting stories from the road and news from the One Big Table Across America events. Grab a chair, stay a while, and come back often.
