The Truffle Encyclopedia covers four main culinary species under Truffle types and a working calendar under Season. Around these run a body of articles on the working aspects of the genus — the market, the kitchen, the regions where the species are produced, and the human craft that has built up around them. This page is the organising index.
Market & kitchen
The buyer's working guide. Daily prices, fluctuations, the substitution checks every buyer should know, the storage rules per species. Together these three articles answer the question: how do I get a real truffle to a real plate?
Truffle Prices
Daily prices, fluctuations, rules of thumb — an orientation for 2026.
Where to buy truffles
Specialist dealers, autumn fairs, online buying — and the substitution checks every buyer should know.
Storing truffles
Per-species storage rules, the egg trick, the rice fallback — and why plastic ruins everything.
Product knowledge
The two articles that disentangle common misunderstandings: the chemistry behind "truffle oil" and the linguistic question of where the word came from.
Truffle Oil
What is really in the bottle, the chemistry of 2,4-dithiapentane, EU labelling rules — and why genuine truffle oil practically does not exist.
Truffle vs. Truffles
Etymology and usage: Latin roots, Romance descendants, English plural and capitalisation rules, and the chocolate cousin.
Regional reportage
Four regional reports. The Périgord and Alba are the two named markets that defined the European truffle culture; Germany and Switzerland are the two regulatory contrasts that most matter to a Central European buyer or hunter.
Périgord Truffles
The region, the historical collapse, the cultivation renaissance — the black truffle and its homeland.
Alba Truffle Market
The Fiera del Tartufo and the Asta Mondiale: why Alba became the mecca of the white truffle.
Finding Truffles in Germany
Where truffles grow, what is permitted under federal protection — and why plantations are the only legal source.
Finding Truffles in Switzerland
Cantonal rules, Trüffelschein permits, working regions — Switzerland as the Central European hunting paradise.
Cultivation & craft
The two articles on the working craft: how truffles are cultivated and how they are hunted. Together these answer how the species reach the market — and explain why the one species that resists cultivation (the white Alba) is also the most expensive.
