If any of you home foodies want nice truffle later in the coming seasons for the family, I got you covered.

Using one of Mother Nature’s most wondrous and rare ingredients begs for a kitchen to use restraint, even if that calls for only using black truffles at the ultimate peak of their season. Of course, Mother Nature is always unpredictable, so what we become accustomed to assuming is the normal season of the black truffle can vary from one year to the next—especially if you believe in what are the changing patterns of the planet’s alignments to the sun.

Secondly, the use of the truffle calls for the serving staff to be informed as to the origin of the truffle and for the kitchen and the dining room to coordinate the service of the dish so that the taste and texture of the truffle isn’t overshadowed by some trendy presentation. In some cases all these elements come together, in other cases they do not. It simply seems to me that ELV called it out when it didn’t come together.

The same is true for the white truffle from Alba—the sensual allure of dreaming that just once a year I can have a dish of pasta with just a few shavings of fresh white truffle (imported overnight from Alba at its peak flavor), over a simple pasta is far more exotic than having the same dish every other week with a tired, shriveled white truffle preserved in who knows what.

Now I know that restraint is not always associated with dining in Las Vegas and the line item “supplement” is a regular feature as it were on menus around town. (The term certainly applies in reference to this truffle discussion). I would have to agree, somewhat, with ELV when he said that a shaving of black truffles might impress Mr. and Mrs. Fannypacker from Bumfudge, Utah. They might not know what a truffle is, but they might be impressed that something that costs an additional $35.00 bucks must be good. The unsuspecting part comes in because they don’t have a clue when a black truffle is in season or not, if it’s at the peak of its season, if it should be shaved on top of the scrambled eggs or scrambled in them. It’s the responsibility of the kitchen and the staff to take care of those details, (especially at that “supplemental” price).

Truffle Dealer was critical of ELV, but in that criticism I caught a statement that I read as actually supportive of one of ELV’s points–“Las Vegas is still an “experience” and it’s our job to accomodate that experience.” It seems to me the best way to support and accommodate the experience of the guests, (whether the diner is a rube or not), is to take care of the exacting details I’ve mentioned that support ELV’s points.

Today I turned to my hard-cover copy of “Larousse Gastronomique,” for the French perspective on black truffles.

I’ll leave my learned friends with a quote from the noted French gastronome, Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reyniere, (1758-1837). Grimod de Las Reyniere was trained as a Lawyer, (a profession other Food Writers are known to have experienced).

When speaking about the peak ripeness of the black truffle, Monsieur Grimod de La Reyniere was quoted as saying, “Truffles are only really good after Christmas……….So let us allow ignorant fops, beardless gourmands, and inexperienced palates the petty triumphs of eating the first truffles.”

It would seem to me that de La Reyniere and ELV have more than the law in common. Apparently the best black truffles are not served the second week of March.