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Black diamonds - MCV - Melbourne Community Voice for Gay and Lesbian Readers

Written by S.M. King

You’ve heard about them, maybe you’ve even seen them – but have you tasted them?S.M. King investigates the truffle.

Larousse Gastronomique

, the chef and food snob’s bible, defines the truffle as a subterraneanfungus that lives in symbiosis with certain trees, most particularly the oak. This hardly begins todescribe the prized little ’shroom. I’d define it as a culinary marvel that lives in symbiosis withthe palates of certain humans, most particularly mine.There are, as you know, certain foodstuffs that cause gastronomes to gush. As a fairly fanaticalpig, I’ve tried a few: foie gras, Sevruga caviar and Bird’s Nest were all

okay

but I wouldn’t skipthe rent to try ’em again. And you’d have to pay me to give Ambergris another go. However,truffles are a different beast. I’d sell my grandmother to taste a

Tuber melanosporum

.Truffles are so highly prized because they are impossible to cultivate on a large commercialscale. There are 70 varieties of truffles found around the world, with 30-odd varieties flourishingin Europe alone. The magnum opus of truffles, and the variety about which this little truffle piggydreams, is the

Tuber melanosporum

. It is also known also as the

truffe noir d’hiver

or ‘blackdiamond’.The most renowned region for truffles is Lot, near Toulouse in the southwest of France. Theman with the goods is Pierre-Jean Pebeyre, and his business, Pebeyre Truffles, is to truffles asDe Beers is to diamonds. His family has traded high-quality truffles for four generations. By allmeans, drop him an email: pebeyre@pebeyre.fr. Be warned, however: you’ll need to stand inline behind his client list of the world’s best chefs for a gander.Here in Australia, truffles have been successfully harvested in Tasmania and Victoria byPerigord Truffles, whose black truffle inoculated plants were established in

truffières

, or truffleplantations, in 1993. In 2005, the first truffle was found in the Yarra Valley by a dog calledPickles.You’ve heard about them, maybe you’ve even seen them – but have you tasted them? S.M.King investigates the truffle.Dogs are more commonly used than pigs to find truffles these days. Dogs need to beextraordinarily well trained. They’ll find the truffles alright, but a good pig has a nose like aParisian perfumier, hunting down the fungus at the peak of its maturity. Fido can be a bit rash.

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