TRUFFLE - THE BLACK QUEEN OF CUISINE

The round, ripe, aromatic Périgord truffle, Tuber melanosporum, is pure truffle royalty.

My first truffle was in the Dordogne, Périgord of yore, the heart of gastronomie. It was a soft summer dusk. We were dining on the perched terrace of our hotel, a 14th century chateau. The kitchen could have served us boiled newts and we would have loved it.

The dish was whole black truffle in puff pastry, and it was almost the cost of a mortgage payment. As we cut into the pastry, a gust of truffle hit us smack in the chops —dizzyingly aromatic, musky, sweet. And gilding his gastronomic lily, the chef had set the truffle on a slice of foie gras. I haven’t eaten anything like it since.

This truffle was the real thing, tuber mylanosporum, the round, ripe Périgord truffle known as “the black queen of cuisine.” Truffle royalty, she seizes you by the olfactory lapels and has her way with you.

The truffle was a delicacy in Mesopotamia in 1800 B.C. The ancient Egyptians cherished it poached in goose fat. The Romans declared it aphrodisiac, and the association lingers to this day—maybe because the truffle’s musky aroma is caused by the same sex pheromone found in male sweat.

In the Middle Ages, the truffle was vanquished as the work of the devil and almost literally stomped out. It staged a comeback in the Renaissance. Louis XIV consumed a pound a day.

This subterranean fungus materializes around certain oak trees in extremely poor soil. Pigs and boars adore it, but the day of the truffiste—the truffle hunter—roaming the woods with ecstatic swine is long gone. Now dogs, not hogs, root out the prize.

In the Dordogne, we went hunting with truffiste Henri Dussolras, whose sidekick was Kiki, a mutt with a Cyrano snout for the good things in life. “Cherche, Kiki, cherche!” shouted Henri as we forged through stands of oak trees. Kiki was more interested in marking his territory. “No pee-pee, Kiki!” cried Henri.

The dog burrowed his nose into the soil, pointing the way to a large grey-black lump. It was a summer truffle, a black queen lookalike, but vastly milder in aroma and flavour.

Kiki didn’t realize he was big business. At $1,000 per pound, the truffle ranks as the most expensive food in the world. Earlier this year, the world’s largest Périgord black truffle, weighing 1.3 kilos, sold for about $2,000. The truffle-laden hamburger at New York’s DB Bistro Moderne sells for a cool $150.

But the world supply is on the increase. Dramatic breakthroughs in truffle cultivation are changing the international picture. Eugene, Oregon, hosts an annual Truffle Festival. Vancouver chefs David Hawksworth and Pino Posteraro swear by Australian truffles. New World countries including Canada, New Zealand and Chile have tossed their hats in the ring. And China stands accused of truffle knock-offs, flooding the market with nasty facsimiles, often with bogus French labels.

Prices remain stratospheric, but cunning spinoffs are making the celestial sensation accessible to the peasantry. Here in Victoria, Ottavio and Choux Choux Charcuterie offer whole black truffles, truffle slices in oil, truffle salt, truffle paste, truffle butter, truffled cheeses and truffle oil.

The oil—truffle-flavoured olive or grapeseed oil that usually contains nary a speck of real truffle—does the trick for pasta sauces, truffled frites and, most amusingly, popcorn. A sprinkle of truffle salt glamorizes everything from fried eggs to potatoes. Truffle paste — truffle mixed with mushrooms—is dandy on toast for breakfast, layered in puff pastry as an app or stirred into sauces.

And although the BC Liquor Board doesn’t see fit to give us a shot at it, Black Moth Vodka comes infused with Perigord truffles.

My wife Carol lovingly follows a recipe for the signature dish at Truffles, the late restaurant at the Four Seasons Toronto: spaghettini with Perigord black gold and truffle emulsion sauce.

She begins by stirring a mixture of truffle paste and truffle oil into hot chicken stock. She folds the mixture into whipped cream. She boils and drains the spaghettini, tosses it with half the sauce and arranges it on a plate.

To finish, she drizzles the remaining sauce over the pasta then gilds each plate with chervil and several slices of black truffle. Guests have been known to emulate the host and faint with bliss.

By Jeremy Ferguson in "Eat Magazine", issue 16-06, November-December 2012, Canada, excerpt p.8. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.