3. Truffle Hunting and an Ugly Fish

S1 E3: This program gives us an opportunity to find out more about Sarnano, and to get out into the nearby woods with Tinker, the Cookucina dog, in search of a local delicacy - truffles. Today’s starter is a delicate fish mousse made with just about the ugliest fish you’ll ever see, so ugly that to call someone a “Scorfano” is a popular Italian insult. Lia’s main course is a pasta dish – tagliolini con tartufo, and it gives us the chance to discover the heavily-wooded countryside of Le Marche, with Tonino and his truffle-dog, Fiuto, in search of truffles which can, if you find the right type, be worth more than their weight in gold. Finally, Lia introduces Tamsen to a very special kind of torta di cioccolato, a chocolate tart that won’t make you fat because it uses no butter. But it’s quite possible that all that good work may be undone, because the two women make a trip to the local gelateria, where we discover the taste that gave Italian ice-cream its world-wide reputation.