The scene is a 17th-century open-hearth kitchen inside an ancient palazzo, central to the tiny Italian village of Mercatello sul Metauro in the Apennines. Surrounding you, nine gentlemen bustle about with professional fervor, tending the glowing fire, perfecting lush salads, hand-stretching strips of freshly rolled tagliatelle pasta, concocting fragrant sauces, and grilling sizzling fatty steaks pierced with teasingly pungent garlic.
On your behalf (and their own), they have dedicated this evening to a boisterous celebration of locally farmed and foraged food, copious quantities of wine, occasional bursts of spontaneous song, and an exuberant spirit of conviviality. And to top it off, this is truffle season. Call them mushrooms or fungi, these wildly expensive tubers flavor nearly every dish they serve.
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While these images may seem the stuff of a connoisseur’s brandy-laced dream, the overall experience is surprising simple to enjoy throughout the year, although freshly found truffles are largely limited to October and November. The key to savoring this deliciously intoxicating world is a young woman whose family has owned the Palazzo Donati in the Marche region for roughly 28 generations.
Luisa Donati grew up here, although she now splits her time between Mercatello, her apartment in Florence, and the family’s much larger estate in Montestigliano, Tuscany, where she helps cultivate 3,000 olive trees producing a prestigious, award-winning oil.
That sprawling agricultural estate, about 15 minutes drive from Siena, includes 12 luxury villas dating as far back as the 16th century, which visitors may rent for seven-day stays or more. It was these rentals that gave Luisa the idea to open rooms in the palazzo to weekly guests as well, merging that experience with cooking lessons from neighborhood “nonnas” using localwild herbs and flowers, learning the traditional arts of fabric painting in San Leo and paper making in Fabriano, private tastings of Le Marche wines at their source, viewing landscapes made famous in Piero della Francesca’s paintings, and getting a personal tour of Princess Clara of Carpegna’s palace. (She and Luisa have been pals since childhood.)
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One further perk Donati arranges is for the nine men of Accademia del Padlot — that’s what they call their culinary association — to create one of their unforgettable feasts at Palazzo Donati. If truffles are not in season, they will serve equally amazing alternatives.
Surprisingly, none of the Accademia members are chefs. Lanfranco runs an insurance office, Daniele works as a civil servant, Sandro sells iron girders, Elizio, who makes all the pasta from scratch, is a retired engineer, and so on. They are united by a love of good food, honest ingredients, red wine ad infinitum, and each other’s company.
Donati has known most of them all her life. In past eras, Mercatello society may have reflected the class structures of nobility-heavy Florence or Venice, but today it is quite egalitarian. Nevertheless, the town still looks like it did in the Middle Ages: narrow, cobbled streets, high stone walls, and medieval architecture. There is even a convent of cloistered nuns who communicate with the public through a single barred window.
The three-story Palazzo Donati occupies an entire city block, with one side facing Piazza Garibaldi, Mercatello’s main square. When I ask Donati if she felt like a princess growing up in this palace filled with antique furnishings, she replies, “Not at all. There are several ‘palazzi’ here, so I felt it’s quite normal.”
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The story I hear from her best friend and neighbor, Nicoletta Amicizia, however, paints a different picture. “Have you heard of Italy’s greatest medieval poet, Dante Alighieri?” she says. I reply I know Dante as the Florentine author of “The Divine Comedy.”
“The same,” Amicizia says. “Dante’s wife was Gemma Donati, from one of the most powerful families in 13th-century Florence. Despite their marriage, Dante became bitter enemies with Gemma’s kinsmen, including Luisa’s direct ancestor, Corso Donati.”
“When Dante and Corso joined rival political groups, there was serious fallout,” Amicizia continued. “In fact, Luisa’s ancestors were among several Donatis sent to Hell in Dante’s great literary work. Ironically, Corso and Dante were both banished from Florence a few years apart as their political fortunes shifted. That’s why Luisa’s family has a palazzo in then-distant Mercatello, today only two hours drive from Florence.”
Amicizia and her boyfriend, Giorgio, joined us in our night of revelry, with good reason. Giorgio is a white truffle hunter, and he came to share his bounty. Rare white truffles sell for eight to 10 times the price of the black variety — 1200-1500 euros ($1500-$1900) per kilo versus 150 euros ($188) for their darker cousins. Yet Giorgio is laughing as he shaves slivers of white truffle worth a trans-Atlantic airfare into our pasta.
The following day, Amicizia, who doubles as a tour guide, suggests we attend the National Fair of Truffles in nearby Sant’Angelo in Vado. Turns out we are a few days early, but we do get to see stunning first-century mosaic floor tiles inside the recently excavated “Domus del Mito” (Villa of the Myth).
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We also meet truffle hunter Andrea and his super-sniffer dog, Pialla. Andrea explains that he is dressed raggedly in his Sunday worst because his work necessitates penetrating into the thickest woods, where clothes get shredded and he has to carry a pruning knife to cut branches that snag in his bushy beard. I resist suggesting that he shave.
Fortunately, we are in time for the white truffle fest in Acqualagna, where dozens of dealers loudly proclaim their superior produce. Hot food stands offer truffled polenta, and even truffle hamburgers. We duck into a quieter shop, i Nobili di Acqualagna, where sisters Federica and Daniella Basili offer us tastes of truffle cheese and truffle oil.
As evening falls, we thread our way back to Palazzo Donati, and next day head west to Florence and Siena to visit their noteworthy landmarks. Compared with my experiences in Mercatello, however, those famous sites were mere postcards. The true heart of the journey lay in the laughter, feasting, and camaraderie of Le Marche.
Joseph A. Lieberman can be reached at photoguy999@gmail.com.