A white truffle is almost impossible to cultivate. It is forged by cryptic collaborations in a cauldron of darkest soil. It has traded with the trees, made discreet dealings with microbes. Fused to the tree roots like a good growth, plum-like, this not-so-tiny god has bulged to hideous perfection, sending out its intoxicating cry to be eaten so that it may spread its spores with the digestive aid of squirrel, rat, pig, dog, human. It does not discriminate. But timing is everything. Every second that truffle is out of the ground is a diminishing. Seconds tick toward the death of this warty
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