Fonduta Valdostana con Uovo Poché e Tartufo Nero (Italian Aosta Valley Fontina Fondue with Poached Egg and Black Truffle) Fonduta valdostana is made of four things and nothing else: Fontina DOP, whole milk, butter and egg yolks. No wine, no kirsch, no starch. What reaches the table is not a sauce thickened with flour but an emulsion held by the cheese's own proteins and the lecithin of the yolks, loose enough to pour and firm enough to hold a poached egg. That short list is w

Fonduta Piemontese al Tartufo Bianco d'Alba (Italian Piedmontese Fontina Fondue with Alba White Truffle) Fonduta is not a fondue in the Swiss sense. There is no wine in it, no kirsch, no starch and no burner at the table. It is a bound cheese cream: Fontina soaked in cold milk for hours, melted very gently, then finished with egg yolks and butter until it turns glossy and just pourable. Piedmont eats it from a warm bowl with a spoon, and in autumn under a snowstorm of white t

Polenta Grigliata con Ragù di Funghi Selvatici, Tartufo Nero e Taleggio Stagionato (Italian Grilled Polenta with Wild Mushroom Ragù, Black Truffle and Aged Taleggio) Grilled polenta is the second life of a dish that was never meant to have one. In the corn eating north of Italy a pot of polenta fed a household for two days, and what set overnight in a wooden bowl was never thrown away. It was turned out, cut into slabs and laid onto the embers, where the outside dried and bli