Pépette II--The sequel

Remember Pépette?  I certainly haven't forgotten her.  She was the unquestioned star of the truffle festival 2 years ago in Chateau-Arnoux in Haute Provence.  She unearthed twice the truffles in half the time of any truffle-hunting dog in the competition.  Pépette is 8 years old now, and weighs in at a trim and fit 350 pounds or so.  And she's the champion truffle-hunting sow of Haute Provence.

Once upon a time, all truffle hunting was done with trained sows (boars are too big and unruly for the job).  Pigs have an extremely keen sense of smell which allows them to detect tasty morsels--such as truffles--underground.  And as everyone knows, a pig's nose is adapted to rooting out such prizes.  Back in the days when truffles were wild-foraged, such a sow was worth her weight in gold.  What's more, Pépette--I was delighted to discover in a book on the traditions of Mont Ventoux--is a traditional name for a truffle sow.  But now, almost all truffles are cultivated in "orchards" of truffle-inoculated oak trees.  And most orchard owners use a little trained dog to find just where among the tree roots the truffles are lurking.  But I'm here to tell you, there's no comparison between the truffle skills of a flighty Fido and a ponderous Pépette.  We're talking all the difference between Little League and the BIG League.

This year, the truffle festival was in the nearby town of Forcalquier.  I'd felt a quiver of excitement when I'd seen Pépette's name on the poster announcing the midwinter festivities (truffle season is from November to February). Denis and I juggled our weekend schedule to make sure to be there for the return of Pépette.

Like almost all French festivals, the truffle festival involved lots of delicious food.  Here's Denis inspecting a splendid selection of cheeses from the Piedmont region of Italy--just over the mountains from Haute Provence.  And at another stand nearby, a tower of tommes--firm aged cheeses--topped with a milk can dominated the view.

People milled around, tasting, buying, and tasting again, then sauntering off often munching on what they had bought.  We were breaking off crumbs of an incredibly delicious Parmesan-like cheese we'd bought at the Italian stand for a song, which was more fragrant than any Parmesan I'd ever tasted.  One of my favorite stands had about every variety of European dried mushroom you could imagine--not only cèpes, but chanterelles, morels, black trumpets, and mousserons, a fragile little mushroom that has more flavor dried than fresh. 















Also available were many wonderful pork products.  Not much more than the head remained of the porchetta (whole piglet stuffed with its innards, herbs and other goodies, then slow-roasted in a wood oven) at this stand. 


Considering that the star of this festival was none other than the glorious pig, Pépette, you might consider the sale of all this charcuterie in bad taste.  But such is the blithely carnivorous spirit of the French.  I was reminded of a foire de bêtail (cattle fair) where on one side of the square, splendid cattle were being judged in the ring while nearby, their relatives were being served up off the grill.  Did they realize what that aroma was floating in the air, I asked myself at the time?  Now, I've gotten used to such juxtapositions.  I couldn't resist walking away with a slab of this glorious beechwood-smoked bacon, my reverence for Pépette notwithstanding.


Of course, given that this was a truffle festival, I fully planned on walking away with a large black truffle as well.  The going price for the premium category was 700 euros per kilogram (2.2 lbs.)  Now, a good-sized truffle only weighs about a tenth of that, but still...It was a purchase to be weighed seriously.  Denis and I wandered from stand to stand, inspecting and sniffing the merchandise--sniffing because the power of its aroma is the best indication of a truffle's quality.

The most beautiful truffles offered for sale were those of Pépette's owner--and I swear I wasn't prejudiced in their favor just because they were Pépette's.  We chatted with Mr. Coriole, who wore the traditional blue smock, red kerchief, and black hat of the caveur, or truffle hunter.  He carried an incredibly battered leather besace (shoulderbag) in bandolier style over his shoulder.  The minute I laid eyes on it, I remembered it.  It was his truffle bag, and also where he carried Pépette's rewards, but more about that below.  A truffle sow can easily live 15 years, he said, and, his face turning solemn, he allowed as he would never eat Pépette. ( I was happy to hear that.)  After we paid for our truffle and I stashed it in my purse (where it smelled so much better than Chanel No. 5), Mr. Coriole took off for the truffle-hunting ring and we followed him.  A sign pointed the way.

Cavage is the peculiar term for truffle-hunting.  The crowd thickened around the ring as Mr. Coriole entered with his love, his princess, the royal, the one-and-only Pépette.  Just like the last time we saw her, she wasted no time in getting down to business.  Nose to the ground, it was only seconds before she flipped her first truffle to the surface.  Mr. Coriole neatly blocked her muzzle from scarfing it up with a special pointed cane, scooped the truffle up, put in the famous besace, and slipped a cookie into Pépette's mouth in place of the truffle. 



I prefer to think that Pépette certainly knew the difference, but accepted the substitution out of her sense of duty, good nature, and dedication to the truffle pig tradition.






















I never tired of watching this sequence--the rooting, the truffle, the cookie.  Pépette's expressions were sometimes adorable and often hilariously funny.  (Next time I see her, I'm bringing a video camera and putting her on YouTube! )  At the end, she seemed a little fed up with getting cheated out of her truffles.  She gave her master a bit of a snout-shove and got a gentle but firm smack on the nose in return.  Chastened, she followed Mr. Coriole quietly out of the ring. 



Within minutes she was back in her "dressing room," a trailer homemade out of an old Citroën, painted green and decorated with Pépette's noble profile and some black shapes meant to represent truffles.  But this was a Hollywood set unlike any I'd ever seen.  The dressing room trailer lurched a little as the star inside shifted her prodigious weight.  The applause continued even after she was out of sight.  Once again, Pépette had brought down the house.

 

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