Fabulous Fungus Truffle
Dirty Love
Resembling a rough-skinned potato, the underground fungus that is a truffle is one of the greatest delicacies in the world. By Andrea Burgener.
Thackeray's evocative prose echoes a plethora of praise by writers, chefs and lay truffle scoffers through the centuries, all swooning at the wonders of the fungus. Most usually, it's the black Perigord truffle, Tuber melanosporum, about which they're writing, but most edible examples of the many species in the truffle kingdom have elicited much the same response.
Objectively, these gnarled brown balls certainly don't cut it in the looks arena. It must have been the smell which enticed the first truffle eater, and of course after one nibble revealed the baritone depth and voluptuous, almost indecent musky earthiness, the brown lump took on a new appeal. The Romans - always ones to recognise a tasty morsel and go to bizarre lengths to get it - are often credited as the first keen devourers of the fungus. After the Empire crashed, it was some time before the truffle rose to prominence again in Europe, and it was only in the eighteenth century in France that the gastronomic value of the fungus was truly rediscovered.
The black Perigord truffle is named after the region in France of the same name and though it is widely considered the übertuber, the white truffle (commonly found in the Piedmont area of Northern Italy) is the winner in the exclusivity stakes: this truffle - Tuber magnatum - has never been successfully cultivated, and is therefore more rare and of course more pricey. Still, the Perigord is more scarce now than it used to be - production in France of the "wild" black truffle is actually at a critically low mark, down from 1 000 tons in 1892, to around 100 tons currently.
Nowadays the sexy factor in truffle eating surely stems in large part from it being an ever scarcer commodity. But there's another, weirder factor that may be at work: there's a chemical in truffles which is also secreted by the human male in his underarm sweat. Even more weird, this is the same chemical secreted by the male hog which drives the female hog crazy, making her such a good truffle hunter. But while the female pig and not the male go mad for the fungus, the chemical doesn't make female humans more avid truffle eaters than men.
The chemically driven hog is in fact no longer used as much in truffle hunting: dogs are the more usual finders. While they don't have the female hog's innate desire for the stuff, and therefore must be trained like airport sniffer hounds, their ability to be trained means that they can also be taught not to snaffle the underground trophy once it's found, which is the big drawback with the lusty female swine.
Truffles are far less often a "wild" item than they used to be: progress in truffle farming has been good and is by necessity taking over from ever dwindling wild stocks. The black or Perigord truffle is now grown commercially in France, Chile, Spain, New Zealand, Australia and America.
A very interesting project is currently afoot, or perhaps underfoot, to encourage truffle cultivation in various locations in South Africa. Truffle-mad Volker Miros of Woodford Truffles SA has been studying the truffle for over a decade, and is busy identifying sites around the country where cultivation might be successful. He's been travelling in his truffle bus to share the arcane cultivation knowledge he's accumulated. The nugget is becoming something akin to a crop across the globe, so why the still steep price? It seems the truffle can only be tamed so far: the average yield is only between 20 to 90kg per hectare; a fraction of the yield from most vegetable crops (though New Zealand truffelers have gone up to 120 to 300 per hectare).
Also, unlike "usual" farming, the crop is of course invisible, and the truffalo and trusty hounds or hogs must still actually hunt the stuff, even if it's over a smaller area. Demand still outstrips supply by a long shot. Miros expects the first harvest of South African grown truffles to be between 2012 and 2014, and local restaurateurs and chefs are waiting with bated breath at the chance to inhale the scent of a musky nugget, freshly prised from our own soil.
This freshly prised aspect is certainly part of the "real" truffle experience, but there are other factors, such as type and provenance, which go into making a good truffle. And there seem to be mysterious X-factors which come into play more so than with most crops. Whatever the reasons, all truffles are not created equal, and the difference between the headiness of a really good truffle and the often cut-rate truffle goods which abound at most delis and even some posh eateries is pretty much like the difference between a piece of couverture chocolate and a chunk of supermarket milk choc.
At the extreme end of things, some of the oils on offer in retail outlets have never even been in the same room as a truffle, much less are they largely composed of the stuff. They are entirely synthetic, which makes their usually high prices pretty ridiculous. While some of these oils do sort of manage to capture the intense fungusy note of the truffle, they miss the softer, warmer elements of the taste and smell, where the woody muskiness hovers.
When cooking with truffles, the consensus is that if you've got yourself fresh, good truffle, it would be plain silly to get all fancy and frilly with it. In fact, cooking per se is not really what it's about. Adding is really all you do: shaving it over something fairly neutral for example, such as the classic bases of egg, potatoes, risotto, pasta or polenta. Sometimes you need to do even less than that: just infusing the flavour into something is a way of "cooking" with truffles. Keeping a top grade really redolent nugget together with eggs in a bag to let the scent permeate the shells is the most famous example, and storing a truffle in your rice is also a truffle-lovers' trick to stretch the flavour over many more meals.
As for dining experiences locally, some top eateries do offer the stuff , but it's not always available, and quality does fluctuate, depending on the source and the storage method. In Johannesburg, swish venue Auberge Michel almost always has truffle on the menu, in Durban the black truffle risotto at Aubergine has become famous, and in the Cape truffles abound at many top eateries, including La Colombe and Ginja. Once the locally grown stuff is ready, expect many more fresh truffle experiences when eating out.
WINE WITH TRUFFLES
Enjoy black truffles with old Burgundy or white truffles with old Barolo. Truffles have a wild, musky, earthy depth that goes very well with the aromas and flavours- gaminess, spice notes, earth, dried fruits and, well, truffles-that these wines acquire over time.
Source: Foodandwine.com
WHITE KALAHARI TRUFFLE
The Kalahari truffle is often confused with "true" truffles. These tubers are
Terfezia pheilii, and are not actually truffles. Because they're white, they're often
thought of as being in the stratospheric league as the European white truffle,
Tuber magnatum, but in fact they're nowhere near the price of either the white
truffle, or its slightly cheaper cousin, the black Perigord Tuber melanosporum.
What the Kalahari truffle shares with truffles is the fact they are underground
fruiting bodies of a fungus, and the fact that they also form a symbiotic relationship
with plants and trees. There are many type of Terfezia, the Kalahari type
is perhaps the one most associated with good eating. In Namibia they're more
usually called !Nabba (the ! being the click sound); the name given to them by
the bushman tribes who've included them as part of their diet since forever.
Having a far less intense aroma and flavour than true truffles, they are, logically,
used in different ways: they're often eaten more in the manner of potatoes - that
is whole or in thick slices or pieces - rather than just as slivered additions or
flavouring. They're apparently wonderful with a little butter and salt, but local
chefs have also done brilliant Afro-fusiony things with them in recent years.
