Porcini

Let me tell you about porcini, and why it never pretends to be something it is not.

A mushroom is not a plant. It has no chlorophyll, it does not photosynthesize the way a leaf does — it lives in partnership with tree roots and takes its sugars from the tree. You don't need a lesson in biology to feel this: cut into porcini and the flesh is dense and firm, nothing watery about it, and it smells of forest floor, of damp earth after rain, never of green and sap like a vegetable.

Choose porcini by the stem. It should be thick, firm, white through and through when you cut it. No dark streaks, no sponginess. The cap should be smooth, dry, smelling of forest and nut, never of ammonia or damp basement.

Some people say porcini is a starchy, heavy food, like potatoes. No! Look at it — 22 kcal per 100g, almost no fat. The richness you taste is aroma and savor together, not calories.

This misconception leads cooks to overcook porcini into submission, as if taming a heavy root vegetable, boiling it long past the point where it has given its flavor to the broth, leaving the mushroom itself limp and the dish all one texture. Taste as you go, and pull it out while it still has some bite left in it.