Here Elisabeth Luard captures the essence of the truffle's almost magical power. On a more practical level, she also shows the reader how to get the very best from truffles, whether this means slivering a truffle over a tangle of home-made pasta, inserting delicate slices beneath the skin of a poulet de Bresse or even simply baking a truffle in a jacket of leftover bread-dough. The book not only provides a mouthwatering collection of authentic regional and classic recipes and a fascinating and occasionally eccentric account of truffle-hunting, it also includes a gazetteer of the places where truffles are to be found, recommends the key markets where they are to be bought and gives details of growers engaging in modern trufficulture - making it essential reading for sophisticated gourmet travellers and for all those who are, quite simply, prepared to be seduced by what is surely the ultimate gastronomic experience.
Elisabeth Luard is an award-winning food-writer, journalist and broadcaster who often illustrates her own work. Her most recent cookbook, A Cook's Year in a Welsh Kitchen with photography by Clare Richardson, was published by Bloomsbury in 2010. Previous books include European Peasant Cookery (US The Old World Kitchen), Festival Food and Tapas, all of which are in print with Grub Street. Others include Classic Spanish and Soups (Octopus), The Latin American Kitchen, The Food of Spain and Portugal and Food Adventures: Introducing your Child to Flavours around the World (Kyle Cathie) - written with daughter-in-law Frances Boswell, and Truffles (Frances Lincoln). She is currently Trustee Director of The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, contributes a monthly column to Richard Ingrams The Oldie Magazine, and is a member of the team at online culinary magazine Zester Daily. She has published 2 novels, one of which, Emerald, won the WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award. Her work as a journalist appears regularly in The Daily Mail, The Scotsman, Country Living, Cambria Magazine, The Jewish Chronicle and the TLS.