Baked Whole Truffles

If you want to taste truffles in a pure, unadorned state, baking them whole (or, if you have a fireplace, cooking them under the coals) is the surest way to appreciate them. While this is a classic preparation—it’s Platina’s first suggestion—it is shamelessly extravagant. The cost, however, may be somewhat offset by the fact that whenever the subject of truffles comes up you will have tasted them as have few others.

Until French families started using stoves, foods were cooked in or