White truffle utopia

A refined and graphically elegant publication, the ideal paper transposition of great chefs' dishes prepared to convey multiform sensations without weighing the stomach down. This is the first impression we receive from the book of Carlo Cracco, young and praised chef of the Cracco-Peck restaurant in Milan, entitled "White truffle utopia". The book is made of evocations rather than content density.

We perceive at once the great writing form fantasy, the nice artwork of Claudio Papola, one of post-war art protagonists. Intriguingly chosen texts celebrate this tuber (above all that of the Langhe), mysterious fruit of the earth that unlike the others doesn't reveal itself, but is literally drawn out from the earth bosom.

Cesare Pavese, Davide Paolini and nineteenth-century travellers like the Polish Count De Borch trace, draw out a space-time picture of this myth of our gastronomy.

Then there are Carlo Cracco's recipes: introduced and well contextualized, they are enticing and (apparently) easy to prepare. We start with the classic egg with the white truffle ("the egg is the apotheosis of the truffle, that by its nature marries with rich substances..."), presented in a very particular version, like an ideal gustatory narration exemplarily scanning to the palate the binomial scent-consistency typical of this coupling. Then, "Creamy risotto with parmesan and white truffle of Alba", "Gnocchi of potato, hazelnut and white truffle"...

The book is divided into two parts, one in Italian and the other in English.

Riccardo Farchioni, L'AcquaBuona, November 2003