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Truffles by Josephine
Bacon
They're black, they're white and they cost loadsamoney,
they're also sexy, sensual and highly seductive. For those
who can't tell a truffle from a turnip, truffle and fungi
expert Josephine Bacon offers a user's guide to these fabulous
objects of desire.
What are truffles?
Leaving aside chocolate truffles, so called because their
texture and colour resembles that of the inside of a truffle,
a truffle is the term popularly applied to the fruiting body
of any fungus that spends its entire life cycle underground
(for which the technical term is “hypogeous”) always in association
with the roots of a tree. Anything that spends its entire
life underground and can’t even move about like a mole, has
difficulty propagating the species, which is why so many types
of truffle have developed a very strong smell, so as to attract
insects and animals to come and eat them and thus disperse
the spores. These smells are also particularly attractive
to humans.
The Black Truffle
The most famous truffle is probably the so-called Périgord
or Black Truffle. I write “so-called” because
in fact this truffle, whose scientific name is Tuber melanosporum,
is found much more widely in Provence, and also in Spain and
Italy. The Black Truffle grows mainly under holm-oaks (evergreen
oaks) but it is also found under hazel trees and occasionally
under other species. Before World War I, the Black Truffle
growing areas in France were carefully tended and watered
in dry summers (they need rain in August in order to develop
successfully). Truffles were always expensive, and something
of a luxury, but they were never out of reach of the average
middle class household, and that is why so many turn-of-the-century
French cookery books give recipes that include them. It was
absolutely traditional, at that time, to put slices of truffle
under the skin of the Christmas goose, turkey or chicken.
The Burgundy Truffle, T. uncinatum, is very similar
in flavour to the Périgord Truffle and some authorities
consider it to be superior. It is found in Eastern France
but it is rarer than the Black Truffle and harder to cultivate.
The emptying of the French countryside due to massive losses
of life during both World Wars, from which the country has
never recovered, is the reason why prices have been so high
since World War II. During the excessively dry summer of 2004,
the price reached €2,000 a kilogram! However, an experimental
station called Agritruffe has been set up near Bordeaux which
markets oak seedlings impregnated with truffle mycelium (the
web of filaments that is the true fungus, the truffle just
being the fruit). These are sold inside France and also exported,
in some cases as far away as New Zealand, and there is anecdotal
evidence that they are very successful. Naturally, the growers
are reticent in view of the value of the crop, as the mycelium
takes ten years to start yielding and only yields for another
forty years or so.
The White Truffle
The second most-famous truffle, and one that is even more
expensive than the Black Truffle, is the White Truffle, also
from the Tuber genus, T. magnatum. It grows exclusively
in Italy, though not just in the Alba region, as the Albans
would have you believe, but all over northern Italy. This
truffle has a particular strong smell, and is best combined
with very bland foods, such as scrambled eggs and pasta, so
as to bring out the flavour. It is even more expensive than
the white truffle. Like the Black Truffle, it is best eaten
raw or barely cooked.
A very palatable substitute for the White Truffle is truffle
oil which mimics its powerful odour. In fact, truffle oil
contains no truffles, it is olive oil impregnated with a
complex chemical composition that mimics the smell of the
White Truffle and was developed in – Manchester!
Summer Truffles and others
A third truffle, the Summer Truffle, T. aestivum
is also quite well-known. It looks similar to the black truffle
except that it has distinctive white marbling on the inside.
It grows more extensively than the Black Truffle and is even
found in parts of England. There are conflicting reports of
just how good it tastes. Just because it is a truffle, it
doesn’t mean that it has a strong flavour or fragrance.
The Chinese (T. sinensis) or Indian (T. indicum)
Truffle is now being imported into France in large quantities,
to the great dismay of connoisseurs. It looks almost identical
to the Black Truffle but is virtually without fragrance or
flavour and is the perfect candidate for adulterating a quantity
of Black Truffles.
All of the Tuber species belong to a family of fungi
called Ascomycetes, in which the spores are contained in a
small sack. There is another variety of truffle, the whitish
Terfus or desert truffle, that belongs to a different
family of fungi, and is also highly prized. It grows all over
the Middle East in desert climates. Various truffle varieties
have been found to grown in the United States, such as a few
varieties of Oregon truffle and the Texas truffle (T.
texense) which is found all over the South. Are these
any good? The jury is still out.
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