La Fête de la Truffe

 

 

 

When I was a kid back in Indiana, there were lots of country fairs throughout the summer and fall. And Indiana being--well, Indiana--one of these fairs was the Pork Festival. Now, the Pork Festival had a queen. But, contrary to what you might expect, this queen wasn't the most beautiful pig. No, the queen was always a highschool girl. She was chosen by an unknown constituency, on merits which to me always remained mysterious. But sometimes, judging from the girth of the girl, I was forced to wonder if it wasn't for love of eating pork that she was selected. It wasn't until last weekend that I went to a country fair in Provence where the undisputed queen actually was a pig. But, wait a minute, I'm getting ahead of my story.

Last weekend, as we happened to be in the area checking on the progress of the house renovation, Denis and I went to the Truffle Festival in the nearby town of Château-Arnoux. This fair was celebrating not the chocolate truffle, but Tuber melanospermum, the mysterious, prized underground mushroom which resembles a cross between a gnarly potato and a lump of coal. The truffle is prized for a powerful aroma and flavor nearly impossible to describe. Think earthy, funky, almost garlicky, nearly naughty. The aroma of a truffle is of practically pheromonal proportions. Indeed, it apparently evolved to attract wild boars and other creatures, from underground, so that they would consume the truffle and spread its spores. We're talking some powerful pot-pourri here, with enough funk to attract pigs, dogs, flies and...Frenchmen! As well as, of course, the non-French initiates who have been lucky enough to have smelled and tasted this mysterious mushroom.

The truffle grows in mycorrhizal intimacy with a very limited number of tree species. In Provence, it is most often found under one of three species of oaks, less frequently in association with black pine, hazel, or linden. The best-known nursery specializing in truffle-inoculated tree seedlings is located just a few miles from our house, in the hamlet of Redortiers. Its owner had a stand at the fair, selling a wide selection of seedlings. But remember, the truffle doesn't grow on trees, but under them.

Many truffles are still found in the wild in Provence, and are gathered by experienced hunters called rabassiers. But even more truffles are cultivated. "Growing" truffles consists of planting appropriate tree seedlings which have been successfully inoculated with the fungus (mycorrhizae) in a carefully selected, propitious spot. Then, you wait ten years and hope a lot. With any luck, you will then begin to observe mysterious areas of "scorched" earth beneath some of your trees.

 

These brulés, as they are called, are part of the truffle's mysterious powers and the subject of intense research. While various hypotheses have been advanced (the truffle uses all the available water; the truffle exudes a phytotoxic substance), none has been proven. Curiously, a couple of plants are resistant to truffle scorch. One, the tall sedum (Sedum altissimum), can be used to locate truffle patches when it is in bloom and clearly apparent. To find the actual tubers, most people use a trained pig or dog, either of which is capable of smelling the truffle's powerful aroma through the soil. Some old hands use neither pig nor dog, but rather locate the truffle by waiting for a warm winter day. Then they search for clouds of small truffle flies which hover over the maturing tubers. For, yes, in addition to all its other mysterious, contrarian ways, the truffle matures in winter.

Although the truffle is most often associated with the cooking of southwest France (where it also grows), the majority of French truffles actually come from Provence. There's even a union (syndicat) of truffle growers who of course were highly visible at the truffle fair, dressed in traditional blue shirt, red kerchief, and black hat. As gathering truffles is an ancient tradition, this fair called for celebrating other traditions, such as Provençal costumes and music.

 

As well as truffle-inoculated tree seedlings, lots of other goodies were for sale at the truffle fair. I stocked up on local dried cèpes (porcini mushrooms) and morels. If you couldn't afford to buy any truffles, you could buy truffle-scented eggs (oeufs truffés), for making truffley scrambled eggs even without the real thing. Nothing could be easier than making truffle-scented eggs--if you have a fresh, fragrant truffle. You simply put the truffle and the eggs together in a jar and leave them for a couple of days. The eggs absorb the powerful aroma and flavor of the truffle. Anyway, pre-truffled fresh eggs could be had for only 5.50€ the half dozen.

Of course, I was after the real thing, the big T. I had learned the hard way that the truffles offered for sale at my greengrocer had already lost most of their volatile fragrance. And the price was frightful: 130 euros per 100 grams, which comes out to 1300 euros a kilo. Of course, you can do a lot with a 50-gram truffle, which is about the size of a quail egg. Here at the truffle fair, the agreed-upon price by everyone was 800 euros a kilo. And I knew that by buying directly from a producer (at his farm), the price could go as "low"--if that's the word--as 600 euros. Right now, I was fondling and rapturously inhaling the perfume of a healthy specimen about as big as two extra-large hen's eggs.

 

Denis knew it was hopeless and resignedly took out his wallet. He could already hear my arguments if he hesitated. (I've waited 6 years for a truffle market! I've waited all my life for this moment! Think of what I'll be able to concoct in the kitchen! This price is so much cheaper than in Paris!) The truffle grower from whom we bought it not only had the best-looking truffles but he was also the best-looking truffle grower at the fair. Judge for yourself from his photo below right holding a pic à truffe, the traditional truffle-digging tool of Provence (which can be custom-ordered from this website!)

 

 

Maybe it was my spending too much time looking at that truffle grower, but Denis decided he too needed one of those black hats. He paused in front of a stand selling traditional hats and picked up a black model identical to the truffle growers'. But he hesitated. "Where was this hat manufactured?" he asked the elderly vendor, who was wearing one himself. Denis wasn't about to buy a made-in-China imposter posing as a truffler's chapeau. "Made in France, yes, sir!" exclaimed the vendor. He and Denis clasped hands in a French version of high-5 to celebrate long life to all things French.

 

After trying onseveral sizes, Denis settled on the hat that suited him perfectly. The vendor helpfully adjusted the brim to the correct angle and held up a mirror so Denis could admire the effect. Sold!

 

 

 

 

The longest line at the fair was forming by a stand occupied by a solitary gentleman rhythmically stirring a pot containing a dirty yellow mixture. He doled it out in small plastic cups to one customer after another. The coveted item was a brouillade--a mixture of eggs and bits of black truffle (responsible for the dirty look and the incomparable flavor), slowly scrambled over a bain-marie or improvised double boiler to a soft and creamy perfection. Truffles have an almost magical affinity for eggs, and the brouillade is at once one of the simplest and most delicious ways to enjoy fresh truffle flavor.

Denis and I watched anxiously as the level of brouillade remaining dropped dangerously low. Sure enough, the last of it was scraped into the plastic cup of the person just in front of us. "Not to worry," the cook told us. He'd have another batch ready in 10 or 15 minutes. I let Denis hold our place in line while I went off to browse the other stands. As I left, I saw Denis fending off a Parisienne all decked out in fur and tight, spike-heeled leather boots. She was trying to elbow her way in front of Denis, who stolidly held his place. Then the cook stepped in, rebuffing her false claims of having been in line earlier, and she flounced off in a furious sulk at not having gotten her way. The cook sighed and returned to the serious and more enjoyable business of watching over his brouillade.

I got back just in time for the fresh batch. We greedily took our plastic cups along with a slice of baguette and perched on a nearby wall to devour our snack. Fortified by our taste of truffle, we set off to find the truffle-hunting dog contest, or concours de cavage. (Note that the world of the truffle has a vocabulary all its own: rabassier, brulé, cavage...) On an upper level of the park, a series of giant sandboxes had been constructed. Some of them, already used for a contest, were full of pits and holes. Others showed the toothmarks of fresh raking. All were "planted" with a small, symbolic oak, the archetypal truffle tree. A dense crowd was gathered around one of them. Inside the crush of people, within the sandbox, a small fluffy dog was dashing about, sniffing furiously. His owner followed him, uttering encouragement. "Où elle est? Où elle est?" he chanted, conveying urgency with the intensity of his tone. Where is it?

Sand flew everywhere as the dog zeroed in on a hidden truffle. It was kind of like an Easter egg hunt, except that each dog only had 5 minutes to find 5 truffles. The dog finding the most in the least time won. While the truffle dogs I'd seen in photos had always been Labradors, with a couple of (non-winning) exceptions, all the dogs present were lap-dog-sized, shaggy or fluffy creatures with curiously long bodies. Their pointy, tufted paws made them resemble nothing so much as creations of Dr. Seuss--the dogs of Whoville, perhaps. A bystander told me that they were a cross of Yorkshire terrier and some breed from Madagascar whose name I didn't catch.

Especially comical was the picture presented by the tough-looking, truffle hunter dude at left clutching the fluffy little dog which looked as if it would be more at home in the streets of Paris traipsing along behind a mistress decked out in a Chanel suit. But obviously this comical mutt was the dog of choice for truffle hunting at the moment, and truffle hunting was serious business. As we strolled, one of these dogs jumped me, clawing at my handbag where I'd stashed my giant truffle!

After watching several dogs' performances, we remembered that there was supposed to be a truffle-hunting pig. We set off to try to find where this event was. Descending to the parking lot below, we came upon a promising sight. A hilarious home-made trailer was shaking slightly and emitting ominous sounds.

 

 

Fashioned from the bed of an old Citroën truck, the trailer was painted bright green, decorated with a cameo of a pig's head and covered with irregular polka dots. These, I finally figured out, represented truffles. A poster attached to the back showed a color photo of the occupant, named Pépette, flanked by her owner. The poster announced you could buy lottery tickets to win a basket of truffle goodies by guessing the weight of Pépette.

 

Just as I was peering through the smudged glass of Pépette's porthole, her owner, looking exactly like his photo, approached with purposeful strides. He opened the trailer's door, attached a ramp, and gazed solicitously within. A second later, oh Majesty! Pépette emerged, traipsing as daintily down her ramp as if it were a topmodel's runway.

She walked, deliberate and dignified, straight to a supersized sandbox that had been constructed just for her in the middle of the parking lot. Once she was inside, her owner gently tossed her leash rope over her back and let her go. For Pépette, there was no mad sniffing, no dashing about like those furry flibbertygibbet dogs. No, Pépette just marched from one hidden truffle to the next, using her snout to expertly flip them up to the surface and practically into the waiting hand of her owner. Obviously of royal blood, Pépette was borne of a long line of truffle-hunting nobility. Her ancestors stretched back hundreds or even thousands of years to wild boar bluebloods who, long before the Dawn of Dogs, ate truffles for lunch and dinner. Dignified, professional, downright regal, Pépette was the undisputed Queen of the Truffle Festival. You could say that the only incident of lèse-majesté was when her attendant slipped the truffle away from her upturned snout and substituted a lowly dog biscuit...and a friendly scratch behind the royal ears...

 

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