truffle information

Truffles are found anywhere from 2 to 15 inches below the ground, usually in a circular formation about 4 to 5 feet from the base of an oak tree. A number of varieties exist. The ascoma (fruiting body) of truffles is highly prized as food. In 1825 Brillat-Savarin called the truffle "the diamond of the kitchen" and praised its aphrodisiac powers.. While the aphrodisiac characteristics of truffles have not been established, it is still held in high esteem in colloquial French, northern Italian and Istrian cooking, and in international haute cuisine.

A truffle is the fruiting body of an underground mycorrhizal fungus that lives in symbiosis with tree roots.

Filaments from the mycorrhizae form a net-the mycelium-that searches soil for water and nutrients and delivers these to the tree roots, in exchange for sugars produced by the tree. It's an arrangement that keeps both tree and fungus happy and produces lots of truffles.

Being a subterranean species, truffles have no way to cast their spore to the wind, and so must seduce each animal into nibbling them, thus carrying off spores for dispersal. But mammals, including humans, are drawn to truffles' swoon-inducing perfume, in part because it can include the pheromone alpha-androstenol, found in the underarm perspiration of men and the urine of women. Gourmets from time immemorial have compared eating truffles to a near-sexual experience. A few veil-thin shavings are sufficient to send a simple risotto into the anteroom of heaven.

Edible usage
Because of their high price and their pungent taste, truffles are used rarely..

White truffles are normally served uncooked and shaved over steaming buttered pasta or salads. White or black paper thin truffle slices may be inserted in meats, under the skins of roasted fowl, in foie gras preparations, in pates, or in stuffings.

The flavor of black truffles is less pungent and more refined than their white cousins. It is reminiscent of fresh earth, mushrooms, and when fresh, their scent fills a room almost instantly.

Contrary to stubborn legends, truffles can be grown. As early as 1808, there were successful attempts to cultivate truffles, known in French as trufficulture. People had long observed that truffles were growing among the roots of certain trees, under oak trees in particular, and indeed scientific research has proven that the truffles live in symbiosis with host trees.

Looking for truffles in open ground is almost always carried out with specially trained pigs or dogs. Pigs were the most used in the past, but nowadays farmers prefer dogs, which don't eat the truffles. Both pigs and dogs have senses of smell, but while dogs must be trained to the scent of truffles, female pigs or sows need no training. This is due to a compound within the truffle which has an uncanny resemblance to the sex pheromone of male pigs or boars to which the sow is keenly attracted. It may have been the strange attraction that pigs have to these fungi which prompted its discovery by early human populations.

The farmer will often get a truffle at every single spot that a dog shows. Sometimes the farmer would have a to sniff at the soil to pinpoint the exact location of a fungus.

Farmers in some regions of France make anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of their annual income at the luxury markets; brokers make between $40,000 and $90,000 during the four-month season..

There are commonly high prices paid for the luxury food item. Numerous stories hit the headlines one truffle recentely went for £28,000, it weighed 1.88lbs and was bought by Zafferano, an Italian restaurant in Knightsbridge.

Cecconis, one of the best Italian eating places in London is famous for Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Kevin Spacey dining together running up a abill of over £500 for a truffle dinner.

Wild truffles were once so plentiful that Europeans consumed them like potatoes. Recipes from the 1800s call for a whole pound of truffles to stuff a capon. Yet such stuffing would cost $2,000.

Buying truffles:
Some advice to buy from a specialized market, but it may be that one just requires a simple taste of the truffle.

The world's most expensive truffle sold for more than £60,000 after an international auction dominated by a handful of celebrity chefs.
The Alba truffle: the identity of the winning bidder is still unknown
Weighing 2lb 10oz, the rare white Alba truffle, which is only found in Piedmont, Italy, for two months of the year, was described by auctioneers as "the size of a small handbag".

A six-course white truffle tasting menu being offered in New York by chef Ducasse contains just 20 grams of truffle. Price: $320.

In the past 100 years France's annual harvest of black truffles has plunged from 2,000 tons to 8. Clobbered by global warming, acid rain and the Gallic penchant for building condos on prime truffle land, harvests were further shrunk by the heat wave of 2003.

Dwindling supplies have sent dealers like John Magazino of Bel Canto Foods in New York scrambling for alternative sources. China now produces truffles. Croatia, too. Some truffle farming is going on in New Zealand and Tasmania. It is in Croatia, where the world's largest truffle was discovered, and in whose virgin forests are unearthed large quantities of the top-quality fungi, most of which are bought by sharp-eyed Italian traders.

Truffle farming is very much in its infancy, despite the fact that crude growing methods date to the early 1800s, when France started farming truffles.

Truffle industry is big in the USA where many an expensive New York eating establishment buy much of the European stock.

Anagrams of Truffle issues

Fretful = truffle

'clinton truffle' = 'Lift fluent corn'

clinton spacey truffle = 'Fluently fair concepts

foreign names for truffle

Trufa - Spanish

Truffe (champignon) - French

Truffel - Dutch

Tartufo - Italian

Trufla - Polish

Tryffelsvamp - Swedish