MaxH

Can't add much to this except more factual corrections (below). Lobster Newberg is a dish whose history I know something about, evidently much more than Peterson did. I posted links summarizing Evan Jones's authoritative 1992 historical article (though I gather fooey did not look at it before replying). Most of the relevant writing is in print, not online (except the Ranhofer recipe, though I got that too from the printed book). I've seen print references to this dish (and occasionally its colorful history) since before fooey was born, and collected books and information on French cooking, and enjoyed that and talked to people about it (in France) since even earlier. If any other author identifies Lobster Newberg with French cuisine, I somehow missed it, and that author is wrong too. I already explained that the primary French food encyclopedia (far more authoritative on French cooking than any US source) calls it a US dish. If people want to argue positions contradicting these widely respected sources, please at least take the time to check them first. One of the minor-classic midcentury US cookbooks also summarized the history with Captain Wenberg, though not in as much depth as the Evan Jones article. Wenberg, a customer, introduced the dish to Delmonico's; it went onto the menu; later the owners anagrammed the name, after expelling Wenberg for causing a fight. Some years later, the recipe that fooey linked to appeared in Ranhofer's unauthorized Delmonico's cookbook (whose own colorful history figures also in Jones's historical article, which I highly recommend). Not so. It was created with cooked lobster and cream in a chafing dish by a US customer; those cooking principles are international. Ranhofer is only obliquely relevant, because he later published a version of the recipe. The dish's original name is in English; you happened to encounter, by chance, Peterson's translation of the name into French just as it might appear on a French restaurant menu (in the US or France). Just as Narsai David, whose California restaurant I enjoyed in the 1970s (still have the menu on file) listed a chicken dish "Suprêmes de Volaille 'Alexis Bespaloff'" even though created in the US. (By accident.*) *This dish, related slightly to the Newberg by the way, is boneless chicken breasts sautéed, the pan then deglazed by reducing Sauternes wine in it and then cream. Recently, after wondering about the name for years, I contacted Narsai who explained it to me and then publicly. Bespaloff, the popular US wine writer, was entertained by Narsai at home. Narsai said that he was cooking a simple chicken sauté, reached into the refrigerator for an opened bottle of wine to deglaze with, and found only Sauternes -- sweet, unlike the wines he normally used. What the hell, he thought. Turned out well, went onto his restaurant's menu. Technique meets improvisation. In fact, I may make that dish very soon, like tonight; writing about it always makes me hungry ...

Yes, and with "truffle oil" (truffles too grow in spore-bearing soil), which is widely available, the problem is solved simply if notoriously by using no truffles.

Yes, just make it fresh as needed and either freeze it, or don't keep it (refrigerated) for more than a "few days." I've seen those standard guidelines (for anaerobic food storage without pressure sterilization) throughout official advice (and mentioned earlier in this thread, and the related Garlic-Oil thread, and the sous-vide thread, quoted below). The main point, on this and other botulism questions, is to read and follow official public-health advice about it, which is readily available, and mentions these things and more. Food forum postings are no substitute. The three classic ways to prevent botulism poisoning in foods stored anaerobically without first pressure-cooking are: consume soon (before bacteria can develop much) -- recurrent phrase is "a few days" if refrigerated; stop bacterial growth chemically (preservatives or high acid); or stop the growth thermally (i.e., freeze it).

Cim, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "pressure can," but if (unlike most home cooks) you have a pressure cooking system that reliably meets the recommended guidelines then you certainly can kill off Claustridia spores. That's what commercial canners are required to do. One of the notorious US botulism outbreaks (Bon Vivant soup co.) happened when equipment malfunctioned and failed to sterilize canned Vichysoisse (potato-leek) soup, meant to be served cold, without further cooking. Fat smoke points are all safely above the required temperature. A dangerous misconception (surfacing in some past eGullet postings, and almost any other forum addressing this) is that heating fats to 250F or higher also heats the foods in the fats to the same temperature. You'll find no chemists and few physicists with that notion. They know that if the foods contain any water (as they always do, in these situations) it limits the local temp. in the food to only 212F, and very efficiently too, thanks to Lvap (latent heat of vaporization). Same physical effect that demands much more energy to boil away a quantity of water than to heat it to the boiling point; same effect that makes evaporative cooling work, and various other things we take for granted. The whole point of pressure is to raise water's boiling point high enough that everything in the food can get above 250F, water and all.

Um, fooey: This is a dish from a New York restaurant and named (with a twist -- it was originally Lobster "Wenberg") for a US customer who first cooked it there. History in links already cited. It has been discussed here, off and on, for years. Escoffier organized and codified existing French recipes -- he did not create them! Many of what are usually called classics were hundreds of years old in Escoffier's time. There's plenty about that in standard reference books related to the subject (I don't know how much is online). As I already pointed out, standard French sources also credit the dish with US origin. If it came from New York, and its late-1800s origin is much newer than most of the French cooking already established when Escoffier et al. began cataloguing the subject, then the dish isn't French, even less classic French. Those realities are independent of "arbiter."

-- and as others mentioned, Elizabeth David. Yes! YES! Such authors kept the flame alive when more mainstream US writers pushed mediocrity and false shortcuts. They are among a sort of underground short hits list that I've found to be a de-facto consensus among very experienced cooking enthusiasts and accomplished professional chefs I've asked about cookbooks. Another unusual book and an example of the serious writing on French food available in the US before Julia Child (and in this case, from the same publisher) is Alexander Watt's Paris Bistro Cookery (Knopf, 1957; readily available used, amazon.com alone currently lists many copies, starting about $23). The author, a food writer living in Paris, went to 50 favorite bistros and wrote up two representative recipes from each, complete with atmospheric background, cultural quirks, etc. of the often family-run businesses. Among many, many cookbooks at hand, one of those I use the most is from here in the Bay Area at the region's quintessential modern bistro: The original, 1984 cookbook from the Café at Chez Panisse (upstairs and independent from the well-known restaurant, though often confused with it nowadays by out-of-towners). It's the "Chez Panisse Pasta-Pizza-Calzone" cookbook, ISBN 0394530942, representing recipes from various chefs who worked there. It's full of ideas that are fresh and alive and unpretentious. When I first got it in the 1980s (long before the backlash that has developed against Alice Waters's recent image in interviews, by the way) I cooked through some recipes that looked interesting. Some were even better than they looked, and brought out insightful principles about flavors that I hadn't seen in better-known cookbooks. It's organized around fresh produce by season, but the favorite resipes that I cherish the book for, and cook repeatedly, have nothing remotely to do with fancy or precious ingredients, just insight. Representative is the first recipe: "White Asparagus, Brown Butter, Parmesan, & Fetticine." That commences the first of four seasonal pasta-recipe chapters; a long chapter on pizzas and calzones follows, beginning "Caramelized Onions, Gorgonzola, & Rosemary." Try it, you'll like it!

Certainly this is no reflection at all on fooey, and I don't mean to belabor Peterson -- whose books I haven't read, and they seemed interesting from the descriptions here. But I hope the quotation (Lobster à la Newberg or Delmonico* "another of the great French classics") doesn't reveal Peterson's sense of culinary history! That's a gaffe of Wikipedia proportions, even contradicting obvious English-language reference books on French cooking such as Larousse Gastronomique. (Both of LG's established modern English-language editions, 1988 and 2001, cite the dish's US origins, and it's also far newer than any French "classics" I can think of.) Also, if Peterson read many 20th century US cookbooks, he should know the special US role this dish became famous for: not in "French restaurants," but as the prototypical chafing-dish specialty to make easily at table top (as Ben Wenberg did originally), such as after card parties, or for buffet meals. (Chafing dishes, by the way, reappear periodically as fads for new generations -- we're about due for one, in the US -- but were wildly popular around 1950 or slightly earlier, to judge by their unusually heavy cookbook presence then.) * Ranhofer's original verbatim title circa 1900. Note spelling "Newberg," anagram for Wenberg.

Points taken, but FYI, don't look for that lobster dish in the French canon: it's an American creation (with significant US food-history associations) as discussed earlier on eGullet with further link there to summary of its history.

Though various people here cited Pépin, I'm surprised not to see him emphasized more given Doodad's phrasing. (It might be a generational thing, because Pépin, like Julia Child, came onto the North American scene years ago -- middle 1970s -- but unlike JC, hasn't experienced a recent revival.) Escoffier organized French recipes (plain and fancy) into the Guide Culinaire. Julia Child adapted a sampling of them for US audiences. Pépin took the next step and focused on technique. With a smaller but representative set of basic French recipes, he described the procedures with meticulous step-by-step photos. It was a novel format at the time. That (large-format) book is titled in English La Technique (literally "Technique"), paperback ISBN 067179020X, reprinted 1985 and 1989 as ISBN 0671707116 and under those two ISBNs can be found easily and cheaply online in used copies. (Later, Pépin collaborated with Julia, but it was the book above and his own TV work that established him in the US market. Also, unlike Julia, Pépin actually was both French and a chef.) -- Solid background is essential, and must precede inventiveness. An artistic mind can create a stunning decoration for a cold glazed salmon, but the dish will be triumphant only if the salmon is first properly cleaned and poached, and the aspic rich and crystal-clear. This requires hard work and love. (Pépin, La Technique, 1976)

Yikes! Yet another repackaging of the Guide Culinaire. In the fad for switching titles with author names, a publisher put out an edition titled "Escoffier: etc etc" instead of Guide Culinaire (its traditional title, under which the English translation has been sold, and cited, the longest). Title skipper10 gave looks like a thinned-down version of Escoffier's full 5012-recipe Guide Culinaire, available (under that title) in English for decades. More in the separate Book Thread (last entry 2007) on the various titles under which the GC now appears in English. (Earlier link, "Guide Culinaire" above, is to the traditional version, on Amazon, including my comments.) But I agree with David Goldfarb: Ranhofer might make the better biodrama. (Escoffier codified French cooking -- interesting to cooks and historians. Ranhofer, among other things, fought with the Delmonico family and published their recipes in reprisal. That'll sell more tickets. Maybe with Armin Mueller-Stahl ...)

A little more on Jeremy Fox: By coincidence, last weekend's WSJ article came out soon after I cited him above.

GBaxter, welcome to the forum -- it looks like this is your first post after some years of eG membership. Could you say more about what's behind the question, what you are looking for? I've been hearing that question for some 30 years. I remember a European in 1979 asking earnestly "which are better, French or California wines?" To be frank, I find the question kind of annoying because it compares tens of thousands (at least) of California wines against circa 100 thousand French wines, each at all different quality levels and with some wines unique to each industry -- several French specialties lack California counterparts, and vice versa. It then asks for a subjective opinion for which few people have much data to base it on. For example if you were a Californian seriously interested in Pinot Noir wines, for most of the last century you tended to get them from France because the grape had very limited US success, it was planted in growing regions too hot for it, and produced amazingly dull wines. There were literally about 100 times more vineyards producing it in Burgundy, and many inexpensive French labels were available in California for a few dollars -- I bought them (it's still true, by the way, though not always perceived). In the 1980s, well-made US pinots appeared in numbers (not just from California!) and the picture changed gradually. Today there are wine enthusiasts who've experienced Pinots mainly through US labels, which would have been almost unbelievable 20 years ago because there just weren't many US labels for sale. That example, and there are many others, hints at the problem with such a question. (Thus after some experience I drink, and consider superior, wines from both regions, all depending on specifics.)

If anyone has not yet seen the straight biography made a few years before her death (it's mentioned earlier in this thread), the North American DVD was released in 2005 as ISBN 0767082141 . (Googling on the word pair, ISBN 0767082141, finds copies for sale.) Distributed by New Video for the Arts and Entertainment (A&E) cable network and has A&E product number AAE-72809. It's also the sort of feature that public libararies like to keep in their video collections.

Yes! FJCC. A distinct book, I was just recommending it to someone else. Full of quips and anecdotes (including one that'll have you making a pizza before you know it, and another I cited elsewhere on eG, "When we were with the OSS in Ceylon, ..." describing a local restaurateur and his "flied lice with mix," before proposing a recipe related to it). Many of the broadcasts were equally entertaining. Published mid-1970s at the height of JC's TV series that made her famous, her color French Chef broadcasts (setting the stage for Dan Aykroyd's famous Saturday-Night Live sketch), the original book was the food feature in a popular US book club, and widely purchased. I gather from the Amazon link that it was also reissued more recently.

How about quenelles? I once was pressed into service by a chef friend who handed over a soft package and a recipe, requesting "try this and report." (I did, and FAXed back a formal evaluation, keeping in the spirit.) If I remember, the flavoring meat (foie gras) was combined with white chicken meat, eggs or egg whites, cognac, slight seasoning, and a judicious amount of cream, in a food processor, the resulting paste dropped by spoonfuls into a poaching liquid. The question about the recipe was would the little dumplings take as much cream as chef thought, and hold together -- they did. Quenelle recipes are in standard French sources. Should work with any kind of flavoring meat (certainly pork belly). In one great, classic French comfort-food presentation -- it's in the LG or GC I think and named in honor of some cooking icon -- Lucullus, Brillat-Savarin, etc. -- duck-meat quenelles, with a little duck stock, are served over broad noodles. (Incidentally, the vegetarian Ubuntu's renowned chef Jeremy Fox was previously, ironically, the meat expert at another high-end restaurant, and I enjoyed many of his carniferous creations. He likely had lots of experience with pork belly, that was the kind of rustic ingredient he liked to use.) Don't assume switching to pork belly will get you off the hook. If people can fixate self-righteously on FG as "cruel" (though the birds make it themselves in the wild, before migrating), and in California claim "force-feeding" (long illegal but that didn't stop the rhetoric), and never bother to actually visit the region's FG farm (some concerned chefs did -- including the one I mentioned -- long before most Americans ever heard of FG, and saw that the fattened birds roamed around apparently happily, better off than most farm animals, and that it was the feeder who actually needed protection, being mobbed on sight by the voracious birds), and can vandalize homes and businesses and threaten the lives of children, in the name of compassion or humanity, what's to stop them from taking on any other meat?

For the record, please remember that except for some improvisations and variations, JC's books are basically all collections of recipes from other chefs. Her seminal Mastering titles are selections from the French repertoire found in earlier standard sources, especially Escoffier's Guide Culinaire (which has been available, in English, since decades before JC adapted some of the recipes for US audiences). She was an adapter, popularizer, and TV personality (bringing great relief, when she went national in 1963, to at least one household whose progressive-minded parents decreed educational TV for the children -- it was mostly deadly boring in those days -- I was able once to thank JC for that). But very seldom a creator of recipes. I feel that this history is overlooked sometimes, in the general veneration of JC.

Two separate points here. First, I apologize for confused comment characterizing cocoa powder as a sort of waste product. I recall another, less-common chocolate product from reading about chocolate many years ago, like cocoa with the flavoring principles partly extracted, or else it's made from some other part of the cacao pod. In the intervening years, dull mass-market almost fatless US cocoa powder I encountered kindled a blurring of the distinction in my mind. Though I think products can't legally be sold as cocoa powder in US unless whole cocoa. US food regulators have so far resisted big chocolate manufacturers' petitions to permit artificial fats in product sold as whole chocolate -- which underscores the value of cocoa butter. I haven't read up on the regulatory history of cocoa, and probably should. (Note that amazing information is now readily public on the Internet, things like FDA calls for discussions of over-the-counter medication labeling, arguments pro and con and from whom. I believe some of these processes were always public, but archiving them online makes them easily available to more than just specialists.) That's not really correct -- most cocoa powders still contain 10-12% cocoa butter ...So recipes using cocoa powder do still have some cacao fat. ← It seems my real point wasn't completely clear. It is not disputed by residual fat in cocoa powder.This thread is about recipes that add substantial fat (usually butter) to whatever form of chocolate they use. Any such recipe specifying cocoa powder, or "adding cocoa for more flavor," is exactly equivalent to using whole chocolate instead, but replacing some of its fat (cocoa butter) with dairy butter. Any amount of cocoa you might add to a recipe can be done alternatively by adding whole chocolate instead (its cocoa-solids content provides the cocoa) and reducing the butter ingredient to correct for the cocoa butter that comes in the whole chocolate. So I'm talking about how much of your brownie's fat is butter, vs cocoa butter. ("Apples-to-apples comparison.") I maintain that given a fixed total fat content, if some of it is cocoa butter, that will impart more, or more complete, but obviously not less, chocolate flavor than if less or none of that total fat is cocoa butter.

I didn't come to the conclusion via theory, but by comparing results. I can suggest explanations (more expicitly below), but as the British saying goes, the "proof" (i.e. test), of the [brownie] is in the eating. I'm guessing you meant "cocoa," as cacao is the plant, so all recipes use cacao. (Some decades ago I processed "cocoa nibs" into "chocolate liquor" myself -- if anyone doesn't know the last term, it's liquified pure chocolate, not a drink.) But no one who uses whole chocolate can be called averse to cocoa, because we all use cocoa one way or another -- in whole unsweetened chocolate, cocoa constitutes around half the weight. The issue is whether you also use the fat that comes naturally in whole chocolate, or substitute it completely with butter (which is what the cocoa-powder recipes do). Here I have a problem with logic asserting, in effect, that by using only a component of the whole chocolate, you get more chocolate flavor. Again I'm assuming apples-to-apples comparison: two recipes can contain the same mass of "cocoa" solids (one as powder, the other via the cocoa component in whole chocolate), the issue is whether or not to substitute the other chocolate component -- cocoa butter -- with dairy butter.I acknowledge that my view of cocoa powder wasn't helped by the mediocre industrial product long sold to US home cooks. I gather some powders are now much better, but I'm skeptical of finding dairy butter that contributes more chocolate flavor than natural cocoa butter does.

Sugar types: chefpeon is right on the money. Don't spend time guessing grain sizes and densities, just weigh the sugars -- a true measure. Regarding dessicants in "confectioner's" sugar, I recall 3% corn starch in US retail products (when I had the data), which would have negligible effect on density or sweetness. You could always check that content with the manufacturer and adjust the weight, if still concerned. Problem solved. Tartine's brownie recipe (per Jumanggy): Note, by my admittedly quick check, this is essentially a tripling of the classic Fannie Farmer recipe, adjusted for semi-sweet chocolate, and with light brown sugar replacing the rest of the white (for a mild penuche effect, as in fudge; I've done that too, it's not bad). Jumanggy's photos look much like the brownies from the FF recipe (if you remove them more carefully, while pan is still hot, they hold together more). Sorry if I gave impression of asserting cocoa is "bad" in any absolute sense, or that you can't make good brownies with it. Cocoa retains some of the fatty and flavorful material of chocolate, but it is essentially a part of whole chocolate. What do you think is left, when all that cocoa butter is extracted for its many commercial uses (not just in food)? My main point is that I believe a blind taste test would prefer brownies made with whole chocolate, given otherwise similar recipes (including same total fat content).Point on cocoa not adding "additional fat to throw your recipe off balance" might be excellent for some recipes -- I agree such flexibilities are powerful. But it's out of place here: the proven whole-chocolate brownie recipes that I and Jumanggy linked add butter in addition to whole chocolate (about equal amounts, in my recipe), so even whole chocolate does not itself contain enough fat, by a large margin. (And having tasted these brownies, I'd be loathe to reduce the fat. They still give a less "fattly" taste or mouth-feel than many cookies do.)

I've made very dense chewey brownies since the 1960s. I use the recipe to test out different types of chocolate. (Which often come in the form called semi-sweet or "dark" choc. in US and "sweet chocolate" in UK, though the original recipe calls for unsweetened chocolate, so if using semi-sweet, which is a mix of sugar and unsweetned choc., I adjust the recipe of course). The same recipe is called "fudge pie" if it's baked, thick, in a bottom crust (then served with heavy, unsweetened whipped cream -- a choice combination). Using the high-quality solid chocolates now available, these brownies can be superb, the quality of the chocolate shows through. It's the standard brownie recipe in mid-century eds. of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook probably intact in a recent edition. Chocolate, sugar, flour, butter, egg (I think optional Vanilla extract and a touch of salt). I use the variation called Harvard brownies ("especially rich and chewey") - the basic recipe but with only one egg, not two, and cooked slowly, 300 degrees F. Tops are always dry and crinkly. Buttered waxed paper in the pan before the batter makes removal easy. For a very thick version, make more batter and cook like fudge pie but in a pan instead of crust, and cook very s l o w l y so it cooks through, but without drying the top too much. This source and probably others have the exact recipe online. ("Harvard brownies" are among variations at the bottom. Nuts, obviously, are optional.) Important tips for any dense brownies: Avoid leavenings of any kind (baking soda or powder) -- this is fairly obvious I'm doubtful of any brownie recipe employing cocoa powder. When cacao beans are processed into chocolate (I've done it myself), most of the flavor is in a fatty mass, sometimes extracted with solvents. "Cocoa" is the dry fiber left over. It has historically been heavily promoted in the US and is less often found in recipes elsewhere. But traditionally, intensely chocolate-flavored foods, including "hot chocolate," are made from whole chocolate, not cocoa.

Andie, thanks for those excellent links. I could barely believe my eyes when I scrolled down on appliancist and found the "Zuse print maker - digital image toaster." I hold out some hope that it's a joke. (Because if not, it's the unwitting punchline to a high-tech joke 30 years ago about over-the-top use of digital technology in toasters.) Separate topic: Some appliance products (even, seemingly, entire brands) portray their products as "professional quality;" the absurdity of that is that if you actually want professional equipment, just buy it (and some people turn out not to want it, when they find that oven doors fall open heavily, safety standards differ, etc.). Anyway here are some actual professional toasters: Basic, familiar-looking model producing only 300 SPH (slices per hour) More models including high-capacity conveyor toasters, 1000 SPH or 1200 BPH (bagels per hour)

Good thread. IMO, toaster ovens are an underappreciated piece of optimal technology. I cook a lot with ovens and broilers (gas rather than electric, by strong preference), but have long used electric toaster ovens as an efficient alternative when the cooking fits their limitations (which aren't just size). They're especially useful to avoid firing up an oven on hot summer days. Last year on sale ($30? $35?) at a big retailer (Target), I got a pizza-size Euro-Pro model TO1612 1380-Watt toaster oven (alias horno tostador or four grille-pain, in the trilingual manual) which has proven a godsend. I'd long seen dedicated electric pizza ovens offered by restaurant-supply firms, and considered getting one; but this Euro-Pro is cheaper and very flexible. It's a fairly typical toaster oven except for a circular bulge in the back, letting it easily accommodate 12-inch (30cm) round pizzas. (Standard US frozen pizza size: I've cooked a few successfully on the Euro-Pro's wire rack and incidentally, some US frozen pizzas have gotten much better in recent years, I'm impressed.) The top does get hot, not good for small children or careless adults. I use it on hot evenings, just outdoors, where it doesn't add to indoor heat at all. Excellent for emergency pizzas, entertaining, midnight snacks, etc.

No doubt many things; but I used the name above as shorthand for her books, sorry if that was confusing. Her popular "Szechuan" cookbook (Harper and Row, 1976, reissued 1987, ISBN 006015828X for the reissue) is unusual in being recipes and oral recollections obtained through extensive interviews by the Schreckers, US Chinese-studies scholars who brought Chiang to the US from China. (Chiang herself, I'm guessing, would have been born around 1900-1910 based on some of the content, and may not have spoken any English.) Occasional supplemental material appears, such as this comment I've quoted before from a Harvard scholar from China, describing his experience of the original Ma Po Tofu (or Mabo Doufu) in Chengtu when he was young, prepared "by the famous pock-marked old lady herself:"You ordered by weight, so many grams of bean curd and so many grams of meat, and your serving would be weighed out and cooked as you watched. It arrived at the table fresh, fragrant, and so spicy hot, or la, that it actually caused sweat to break out.

[brief interlude on Brillat's truffle quotation] I agree! I picked it up, forgot where, used it a few times in 1980s Internet food discussions and since, but couldn't locate it in two editions of Brillat's well-known Physiology of Taste (1825). When I googled for it today via key words, all the hits were from my own postings. I located it in Physiology of Taste though, thanks to the French-language dicocitations.com . It's a free, terse translation of Premiers parents du genre humain, dont la gourmandise est historique, qui vous perdîtes pour une pomme, que n'auriez-vous pas fait pour une dinde aux truffes? I got a request from a reader of this thread for advice on good sources of seasonal fresh truffles for home cooks. I posted that on the appropriate forum (Kitchen Consumer), Here.

This information is most useful in Fall and Winter, but I got a request after another thread in the Cooking forum, mentioning other species and their uses. An earlier thread on "summer truffles" included some negative experiences. Fresh truffles (the underground mushrooms, not the chocolate sweets that look like them) are perishable, and must be used quickly. Modern air shipment brings them fresh to many places, but a good local liaison is valuable. Although distant firms will ship them, I've had (and heard) the best results with local importers who either let you choose truffles in person (if the importer handles enough quantity to do that) or are locally reputable and buy carefully (if you must pay in advance, truffle-unseen). Typical local sources for home cooks are specialty food dealers and high-end restaurant kitchens. Some specialty dealers are delicatessens doing their own importing. Others are wholesalers, serving restaurants or food manufacturers, and may sell retail on request. (Keep in mind that unlike some wholesale products, available only in large quantity, truffles are sold in small amounts even to businesses.) Where I first bought fresh truffles in California in the 1980s, good delicatessens sold them; one also sold wholesale, supplying the best-known local restaurant. If you can't find likely food dealers, but you know a high-end restaurant that uses truffles in season, ask the chef where to get them. It helps if you've patronized the restaurant a few times, and formed a rapport with the chef or kitchen. A helpful chef may refer you, or even offer to get some for you with the restaurant's next order. Season for black truffles (Tuber melanosporum) is around late Fall through early Winter. I've seen flavor and aroma fall off noticeably as Winter progresses. White (Alba, or Piedmont) truffles, T. magnatum, have shorter and spottier availability. The strongest truffle aromas I've experienced were from good fresh Italian white truffles -- also the most expensive. Black truffles normally are used in cooked dishes, but the Italian whites are shaved raw over food as a seasoning (after carefully scrubbing the dirt off them). Much cheaper secondary or minor truffle species, as in the recent "summer truffles" thread, have different seasons. I put "summer truffles" in quotation marks because they're not a summer-season version of true black truffles, but a different and much milder species, Tuber aestivum. Confusion on this point is common lately, and profitable to some businesses, which even encourage it. Always verify the Latin name. If it's only a few dollars per ounce (30g), it's a minor species. The Oregon White (T. oregonense, earlier T. gibbosum), likewise not equivalent to the famous Italian white truffle, is harvested and aggressively marketed in recent years; gatherers sell online, at local fresh markets, etc. Fresh Oregon Whites I've cooked with were extremely mild, more like above-ground wild mushrooms than classic truffles. There was some backlash by US west-coast chefs to the marketing claims for this species. Some specimens allegedly have stronger flavor and aroma. Truffles grow wild, underground, worldwide, in association with certain trees. They are far more common than once thought. Most species, though, aren't gathered because they lack the flavor and aroma that make classic European black and white truffles so prized, and so costly. Preserved truffles (in jars or cans), especially "summer truffles," are available year-round. (Here also I've seen deceptive labeling.) All preserved truffles have been cooked, and offer less flavor and aroma than fresh (sometimes, preserved "summer truffles" are enhanced with additives) but they are useful for experimentation. True black truffles can carry considerable flavor even after canning.