The mystery surrounds the truffles: their habits of erratic growth; The arcana rituals of truffle markets; The way they can transform a simple dish of scrambled eggs into a gourmet candy. No one has managed to cultivate them on a commercial scale, Althegh have tried.
Yesterday, a Truficultrice (Truffle grower) From Limogne (lot) gave a talk in a nearby town. As soon as I entered the City Council, I detected the eartoma and mushroom aroma that I had brought to show us.
The speaker spoke incredible quickly with a strong regional accent, but I stayed and learned much more about the elusive thesis fungi.
Cultivating truffles
There are at least 200 varieties or truffles worldwide. One even grows in the desert. The most exensive, due to its rarity, is the white truffle of Alba in Italy.
Two main varieties grow in our region. The Truffe d’Hiver It is black inside with white veins. Is considered superior to The Truffe d’AtéThat is gray inside. The summer variety is four times cheaper than its winter cousin. The speaker delivered bottles that contain different types of truffle.
After Phylloxera killed the vines at the end of the 19Th Centurio, the people in the Quera region turned to the plantation Truffières (Truffle plantations). The truffle grows mainly in the roots of certain types of oak or hazelnut, but can grow in other species.
The truffles can take more than 10 years, if they are going to do so. A tree does not always have truffles, even if there is a bumper harvest one year.
Trufas harvest
Production volumes are a climate function and weather. Truffes need rain at certain times of the year, but successive droughts have drastically reduced their numbers. If the temperature is more than 25 ° C at 10 cm below the ground, as in 2022, they will not grow. In 1900, France produced around 1,000 tons or truffles a year. Today, it is closer to 40 tons.
The truffle harvest is hubby. At one point, people used to find them, but it is difficult to contain half that intends to eat the truffles. Dogs are more susceptible and easier to train. A woman at the audience told us how her husband used to find truffles locally using a pig. People hired him to find them in his land.
Truficultrice He said that the largest truffle ever found was in the VAR, which weighed 4.7 kg (10.4 pounds) in 1870. When I checked Google, an Italian claimed to keep the record with an Alba or 1.9 kg truffle (4 lb). Who is right, the truffles are common much narrower. The biggest the Truficultrice He has found that it was 240 g (0.5 lb).
Commercial truffles
The largest truffle market in our region takes place in Lalbenque (lot) every Tuesday Winter duration. Tourists visit to witness the purchase and sale procedure.
Several other truffle markets are carried out, including one in Limogne. This is a wholesale market that is open to individuals.
Sellers do not sell individual truffles but a small basket. Sellers may ask the price they want, but this denounces demand and availability. This only becomes evident on the day itself.
Courtesy (Trufa brokers) Give a seller a sheet of paper with a price. If the seller accepts, it becomes a contract. The speaker told us that, at age 15, he ignored the procedure and tried to accept a second article that showed a higher price than the first. Another seller quickly did well.
Truffles transforming
What happens to the truffles? I naively assumed that most of them went to restaurants or food food. In fact, most go to a conservation (Canned factory) for conditioning.
After cleaning, the truffles lose about 15% of their weight. They are giving a first cooking, the duration that the truffle exudes liquid and loses another 25%. He dip It is used in other products. They do not lose more liquid and a second cooking. After that, the truffles are an ingredient in Pâtés and Charquterie.
You can freeze fresh truffles. In fact, this is the best way to keep them for any time, since they quickly lose aroma and flavor. It can grate them directly from the freezer on a plate, but if all the truffle is not reduced, it deteriorates rapidly. They are better in simple dishes such as pasta, risotto or potato puree.
Preserved or Cry the truffle (Truffle oil), whose luxury stores are sold at scandalous prices. It remains for a maximum of 15 days.
Truficultrice Delivered around a plate or toasts extended with butter with truffle fragments. It was delicious. The taste remains in the mouth for a while later. He also sold small truffles and more butter with truffles. I bought a little bathtub of the latter, which we enjoyed with the Apéritifs last night.
Trufa trivia
The word ‘trick‘He has developed other meanings over the years:
- A dog’s nose is Unlock. Logical, since one seems.
- In some regions of France, people call popes Truffes.
- ‘Etre Truffe‘It’s being dim or naive.
The truffles have the reputation of acting as an aphrodisiac. The novelist Alexandre Dumas, who also compiled a Great Dictionnaire de Cuisine And it was a notorious female, he wrote: “They [truffles] It can, on certain occasions, make women more tender and the most adorable men. “Maybe that was his secret.
Have you eaten truffles? What did you think?
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