Expensive is the only impression of many people on truffles, Europeans will truffles, caviar, foie gras juxtaposed as "the world's three treasures".
As a popular ingredient among Europeans, it is said that after a hundred people taste truffles, they will say a hundred flavors, such as musk, rain wetting the jungle, the smell of ancient trees causing leaves to accumulate and ferment, the smell of gasoline mixed with garlic and rotten eggs, and a French foodie once described it as the smell of "unwashed sheets". It is precisely because truffles have an incomprehensible taste that they become so mysterious.
Truffle as a wild edible fungus growing underground, the appearance is rugged and ugly, but its nutritional value can not be underestimated, in addition to rich protein, unsaturated fatty acids, a variety of vitamins and essential trace elements, but also includes 18 kinds of amino acids of which the human body can not synthesize 8 essential amino acids are also in it, it can be said that it has a high nutritional health value. Truffles are much more secretive than that, so let's move on.
<h1>Truffle type</h1>
There are many types of truffles, but according to the color, black truffles from France and white truffles from Italy are the most precious.
Black truffles
Black truffles are between dark brown and black in color, with small bumps that cover gray or light black and white textures. In France, black truffles reached their peak in the 19th century, the production is also quite rich, large and small banquets, must have a black truffle-based dish, until the Second World War, due to the disaster caused by the war, resulting in a sharp decline in the production of black truffles, since then stagnant, resulting in the price of black truffles is still rising.
White truffles
White truffle is the only kind of basidiomycete, lifted by the world, only appeared in auctions and media headlines, so it is extremely precious, white truffles can be sold for more than 5,000 US dollars per kilogram, so it is called "white diamond". Foodie Cai Lan also listed white truffle as one of the ingredients that "must be eaten before death", which shows its preciousness.
<h1>Why truffles are so expensive</h1>
Truffle is a gift of nature, it is extremely demanding on the growth environment, in the process of growth can not withstand any slight environmental changes, must rely on the symbiotic relationship with the roots of the tree to obtain nutrients, so truffles are one of the few delicacies in the world that can not be planted in an orderly manner. Truffles are also relatively special in harvesting, must rely on human resources to excavate, based on truffles can not be artificially farmed and must be artificially harvested, which directly causes the high cost of truffles.
<h1>Truffle hunters</h1>
Because truffles grow in the soil, it is a kind of stem tubers attached to the roots of pine trees, generally scattered in the bottom of the tree 120 to 150 cm in circumference, and the bulky body is hidden in a distance of 3 to 40 cm underground, so it is basically invisible on the ground. It is not an easy task to determine whether there are truffles in the ground, which leads to the existence of "truffle hunters". Each of them has a family heirloom treasure map that records where, when and when their parents found truffles, but even then, sometimes truffles may not be dug up, so hunters from all over the world try different methods.
Because the smell of truffles is exactly the same as the smell of the jungle, it is impossible to find it by relying on the human sense of smell alone, so the French began to train pigs, using sows as a right-hand man in harvesting truffles. Everyone knows that pigs have a keen sense of smell, because truffles taste similar to the male hormones of boars, and truffles buried in the ground 25 cm to 30 cm deep can be smelled at a distance of 6 meters.
In Italy, people prefer to use trained female hounds to find truffles, which will use its paws to mark the truffles, and when the owner comes, carefully dig out the precious truffles from the soil with a small rake.
<h1>How to eat truffles</h1>
Since the aroma of truffles is not tolerant to high temperatures, they can be planed into thin slices or ground into powder and sprinkled on other ingredients. In France, a dish with a little truffle crumbs at the end is considered a delicacy. Truffles, as a precious ingredient, are rarely added to the whole dish, and only a little as a side dish can enhance the flavor of the whole dish.
Black truffles can be added as ingredients to eggs, meat, seafood, truffle salt or truffle honey, and there are also black truffle pizza and black truffle ice cream abroad.
White truffles have a stronger smell than black truffles and are less heat-resistant, and in addition to being ground and sprinkled on pasta, salads, and omelettes, they can also be sliced and eaten raw, or used to roast foie gras.
Mature truffles will rot if they are not harvested in time, and the truffles after excavation are not tolerant to storage, the fragrance will be quickly halved, and the half-life will not exceed 3 days, so the time to send to the table is also a race against the clock, so if you encounter truffles, enjoy it!
This article is edited/original by John Rice, welcome to follow and take you up knowledge together! If you don't understand something, we look forward to asking you in the message area below. If you also like my article, remember "Like" + "Follow" + "Retweet".