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 th…