FRANCE: No Truffling Matter

• Share

The small, dark, knobby and wrinkled delicacy known as the truffle has tantalized palates and minds for thousands of years. The ancient Greek Theophrastus believed truffles were a product of thunder. In the Middle Ages they were considered evil things grown from the spit of witches. Later they came to be prized as an aphrodisiac, and Madame de Pompadour fed them to Louis XV. Napoleon, who was having difficulty fathering children, begat his only legitimate son after eating a truffled turkey. He promoted a lieutenant to colonel for having given him the recipe. In 1825, Brillat-Savarin, the savant of haute cuisine, called truffles "the diamonds of gastronomy."

But now, alas, the diamond is threatened with extinction. In southeastern and southwestern France this season, farmers unearthed barely 40 tons of truffles, compared with an annual crop of 1,500 to 2,000 tons in the mid-19th century. This was no truffling matter. Accordingly, 450 farmers and scientists met at a two-day conference early this month in the Perigord region of France to discuss the tuber's troubled future. Mourned Charles Parra, president of the Federation of Truffle Producers in the Lot department in southwestern France: "If we don't find a remedy, the truffle will disappear forever from our markets."

Finding a remedy is complicated by the fact that the truffle is a mysterious fungus related to the mushroom, growing mostly on the roots of certain scrub oaks, usually five or six inches underground. Wet summers, a decline in oak planting and the unpredictable nature of the truffle itself have all contributed to its increasing scarcity.

Old Secrets. To reverse the trend, three Italian scientists invited to the conference proposed implantation by artificial inoculation, sterilizing the soil before seedlings are introduced, and the use of trained dogs instead of the pigs that the French traditionally employ to sniff out the ripened tubers. Said one expert: "It only takes about three weeks to train no matter what kind of dog, and a dog is a lot easier to move around with. Getting a 450-lb. pig in and out of a Deux Chevaux is an unnecessary bother."

The Italians' scientific approach left many French farmers unmoved. "You never know why you find truffles at the foot of this tree and not at the foot of that one," said one. "It happens, by chance, that you can pluck a small fortune [at the current rate of about $20 per lb. wholesale]. But you must at least know some of the old secrets. For example, they say that by working the soil around the oaks under the March moon on the right day you get truffles that are well rounded. The truffle is a passion, not a culture!"