Truffle, an edible fungus, is called "Truffle" in English and "Truffe" in French.
Don't look at its black and uneven appearance like a briquette, but it is one of the most prestigious ingredients in Western food, and it is called "the world's three treasures" together with caviar and foie gras.
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Fresh truffles have a rich and complex aroma, and the smaller the size, the stronger the smell.
Musk, nuts, garlic, mushrooms, dirt, wet grass, honey, gasoline, yeast, cheese, cinnamon, rotten eggs, and even described by one French gourmet as "sheets that have not been washed for many years"...
In a hundred people, there are about a hundred truffles. From ancient times to the present, accurately describing its flavor seems to be an impossible problem, which can be called the "Goldbach conjecture" of the gastronomic world.
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French black truffles and Italian white truffles, world-famous.
The best variety of black truffles is the "Périgor black truffle", and the darker the color, the better the quality.
White truffle is the rarest and most precious one in the truffle family, with an annual global production of only 3 tons, less than one-tenth of that of black truffles. White truffles from the town of Alba in the Piedmont region of Italy are the most revered, known as "white diamonds".
Foodie Cai Lan lists it as one of the "24 dishes you must eat before you die".
The color of white truffles is beautiful golden yellow, pink or brownish gray
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Fresh truffles mined are immediately sent to a dedicated market for auction, where truffle connoisseurs and distributors bid on criteria such as volume, grammage, appearance, aroma, etc.
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Those top truffles are often sold at unexpected prices:
In 2010, gambling king Ho Hung-sun won two Italian "white truffle kings" totaling 1,300 grams for 330,000 US dollars (about 2.11 million yuan).
In 2015, Chinese celebrity chef Dong Zhenxiang (known as "Da Dong") also sold a 520-gram white truffle for 33,000 euros (about 258,000 yuan).
Even ordinary truffles on the market are very expensive, and the average price of black truffles can sell for more than 700 US dollars (about 4400 yuan) per kilogram. White truffles are even more powerful, more than $3,300 (about 21,000 yuan) per kilogram, and at their peak, they can even sell for $5,500 (about 35,000 yuan).
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Such precious ingredients have naturally become the touchstone for testing the grade of Western restaurants. If there are few dishes with truffles on the menu, they must not be considered tall.
The aroma of truffles is not tolerant to high temperatures, and it is rarely added to the whole dish, and only a little flavor is added, which is enough to sublimate the flavor of the whole dish.
Even a plate of mediocre cream risotto, scrambled eggs or pasta can be doubly valuable.
A chef in Las Vegas, USA
He used to make a top-of-the-line burger with black truffles, beef Wagyu beef and foie gras
Serve with a glass of red wine
Priced at $5,000
When eating in high-end restaurants, waiters wearing white gloves can often be seen using a special planer to elegantly planar truffles in front of guests.
Watching it float lightly into the dish one by one, the sense of ritual at this time has been brought to the extreme.
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The thin truffles, whose lines are as clearly visible as the human brain, emit a strange aroma, as if there is a magic that can charm the mind. The French Romantic literary hero Dumas did not hesitate to say anything, lamenting the mysteries of the Creator:
"We've been asking what this stem-like thing is, and we've been asking for 2,000 years, but the scholars' answer has been the same: 'We don't know.'" We asked the truffles themselves, and its answer was, 'Just eat me, and remember to thank God.' ’」
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Whether it is French black truffles or Italian white truffles, there are many loyal fans.
Interestingly, the delicacies that are now hailed as "diamonds in the kitchen" are not born with noble pedigree, but rise and fall again and again with the ups and downs of the tide of history.
The earliest human record of truffles is of the Amorites who lived on the plains of Mesopotamia. As early as the 21st century BC, this nomadic people had been searching for this truffle in the desert.
Later, the Romans also used truffles as spices and seasonings.
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By the Middle Ages, as the scepter in the Pope's hands grew tighter, Europe ushered in the Dark Ages.
Truffles, defined as evil and unclean because of their ugly appearance and rich musky smell, had plummeted in status, and who would have thought that on the European continent at that time, it was worth less than a loaf of bread.
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And when the progress bar of human civilization came to the Renaissance and the Age of Great Navigation, the theological inhibition of people's minds was impacted, and many literary works and folk remedies began to advocate that truffles have an aphrodisiac effect, and this flavorful condiment has transformed into a male tonic.
Legend has it that Napoleon ate a truffle hen cooked in champagne and won the game in one fell swoop.
The European truffle boom reached its peak in the 19th century, and tasting truffles has become a fashion for literati and dignitaries at that time, and banquets of all sizes must have a truffle-based dish.
In a factory in Skegino, Italy
Workers wash truffles
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In 1847, a French grower successfully harvested a large number of truffles by planting acorns from oak trees that had grown truffles, and their output reached hundreds of tons by the end of the 19th century, making truffles a home-cooked ingredient for a time.
Later, due to the severe damage to the local planting industry in World War I and World War II, truffles became scarce again, and prices soared again.
The truffle mentioned above refers specifically to black truffle. The popularity of white truffles is much later than it.
Proud French believe that Italian white truffles are inferior in color and have a far inferior aroma to black truffles, resulting in a downturn in the white truffle market for many years.
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It wasn't until the mid-twentieth century, when Giacomo Mora, the founder of an Italian white truffle sales company, struggled to sell white truffles to celebrities and VIP customers that the situation was reversed.
With the blessing of celebrities such as Winston Churchill, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Pope Paul VI, white truffles from the Alba region of Italy became famous in the world.
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The reason why truffles can firmly occupy the top of the food pyramid, in addition to "unique flavor", is more important is "difficult to obtain" and "must be manually excavated", which directly causes its high cost.
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Truffles generally grow at the roots of oak, beech, goose-eared fir, hazelnut, linden, pine and other trees. It is scattered in a range of 120 to 150 cm at the bottom of the tree, and the blocky body is hidden 5 to 40 cm underground.
It cannot survive independently or photosynthesis, and must obtain nutrients through symbiotic relationships with tree roots.
Rootless, leafless, stemless, flowerless, and often grassless on the land where it grows, truffles are magical underground creatures that were described by the ancient Romans as created by the god Jupiter who struck the land with lightning.
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In addition, it is quite demanding for climatic conditions and soil requirements.
In the northern Mediterranean, where summers are hot and dry, winters are mild and rainy, and soils are weakly alkaline and limestone-rich, they are in line with the favorable conditions for truffle growth, so the world's three major truffle producing regions – the Prosbane region in southern France, the Piedmont region in northwestern Italy and the teruel province in eastern Spain – are located in this area.
In China, the climate of Sichuan and Yunnan is very similar to that of there, so some areas also have truffle distribution.
More than 80% of France's truffle production comes from
The area near Mont Vento in Vaucluse de Provence
When the spores are ripe, they must be sent off the surface before they can spread elsewhere.
This matter is really difficult for creatures growing underground. Truffle's strategy is to release a very seductive pheromone.
The bears, porcupines, rats, squirrels, hares, deer and other animals in the forest are all attracted by this rich fragrance, and after the feast, the truffle spores will scatter in all directions with their feces.
On the ground, it is difficult to see whether truffles exist or not, so whenever the truffles mature in autumn and winter, it is the time for the "truffle hunters" to show their skills.
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What do they find truffles by?
Some are holding the family heirloom truffle origin treasure map, along the fathers once found truffles to find the place, often can be rewarded.
However, more people will choose to lead their dogs to the forest to find treasure.
In the beautiful oak forest, professionally trained truffle hounds sniffed everywhere carefully. Once they find the target, they will start to plan the soil vigorously, and the truffle hunter will run over and carefully dig out the small one with an iron hook.
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At the end of the day, the truffle hunter and his clever puppy may only find a few hundred grams of truffle.
For them, finding truffles is more exciting than finding gold.
In 1999, a Croatian named
Truffle hunter of Giancarlo Zegant
And his hounds unearthed a giant white truffle weighing 1.3 kilograms
The guinness book of world's largest truffles
In the past, looking for truffles was the job of sows. Pigs are more gifted than dogs in this matter.
The sow's sense of smell is very sensitive, and it can smell deeply buried targets at a distance of 6 meters.
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Since the smell of this truffle contains a boar hormone called androstenol, the sow will be particularly sensitive, but annoyingly, if the hunter does not pay attention, the sow will swallow the truffle just found, very uncontrollably.
In addition, when sows arch the soil with their noses, it is also easy to destroy the mycelium of truffles, making it difficult to grow the next year, so this search excavation method has now been banned in many places.
In Yunnan, truffles are called "pig arch fungus" and are mostly used to feed pigs.
Obviously, the Western world is unacceptable to the "truffle = pig feed" setting.
In 1995, the New York Times published a report entitled "The Invasion of Chinese Truffles", which caused quite a stir in the Western food industry at that time.
Some unscrupulous dealers have introduced "fake Himalayan truffles" from China into the United States and sold them as black truffles in shoddy quality, resulting in a mixed truffle market. Although the two do not look much different in appearance, the flavors are far apart.
Image source: Newspaper screenshot
In fact, there are many truffles produced in China, including Truffles of India, Truffles of China, and Truffle Of the Himalayans.
Most of the Chinese truffles that flowed into the Western market during that time were Indian truffles (genetically similar to more than 96%) that were closely related to French black truffles, and only a very small number were Pseudo-Himalayan truffles, which were still unknown at the time.
We do not know whether the author of that article made a mistake by chance or deliberately admitted it, and what the intention was.
At that time, many people in the Western catering industry also held the same negative attitude towards this matter, they refused to recognize the value of Chinese truffles, and because of this, it was always difficult to climb the elegant hall under the Western food discourse system, and the price was only one-tenth of that of mainstream truffles.
Is name and origin really that important?
Truffles india (part 1)
Truffle niger (part 2)
Although a variety of foods are emerging today, they do not diminish the attraction of truffles to diners.
Every year in the season when truffles are ripe, there are always people who follow the footsteps of truffle hunters, willing to spend thousands of dollars, just to taste the beauty of this day's creation for the first time.
Maybe I don't have the keen senses and appreciation of food, and I don't feel the rapid secretion of dopamine in my body the moment I put the truffle in my mouth.
Without the praise and admiration of celebrity chefs and gourmets, if it were divorced from its historical background, class and high price, to me, it might just be a "fart-flavored" fungus.
But the paradox of human nature is that the mouth says "heroes who do not talk about money", but often succumbs to visual and psychological delusions.
So I tried to shield myself from the strange smell in the air, and at the same time asked the waiter to shave a few more truffles into his pasta.
There are many scenes where the form is greater than the content, isn't it?
After tasting it, you can always feel a hint of absurdity.
Image source: Video screenshot
Resources:
1.Truffle price tracker
https://truffle.farm/truffle_prices.html
2.The Invasion of the Chinese Truffle
https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/15/garden/the-invasion-of-the-chinese-truffle.html
PS: Some of the pictures in this article come from the Internet, if there is a copyright problem, please contact us in time.
Author/Curator: Wall-E
Typography: A red hair
Producer: GaGa
"Diamonds in the Kitchen"