Ristorante Ulisse | A Plate of Raw Porcini

A mushroom tasting menu in the foothills of the Apuane

The bowl came in through the front door at six-thirty, carried by a man in a green fleece who had clearly been in the woods that morning. It was huge. It was the kind of bowl you would use to wash a small dog. It was full to the rim with porcini, big ones, the meaty kind with cap-tops the color of wet leather and stems the thickness of a forearm, and there was still black soil clinging to their bottoms and a few oak leaves caught in the gills. The man set the bowl on the kitchen counter, exchanged two words with the cook, was paid in cash, and left. We were sitting at the table by the window, the only ones in the dining room because we had arrived at six-thirty, the way foreigners arrive at six-thirty in Italy, when the staff had not yet finished folding napkins and the proper Italians did not show up for another ninety minutes. The mushrooms sat there in their bowl, looking at us. I turned to Sophia and said, well, I have ordered the right thing.

Ristorante Ulisse is on Via Campana in…