Truffle Feast Tonight - 19 January 2024

Long, long ago, before COVID-19 was known as a scourge of the globe, we visited a specialized farm in France.  Les Pastras is a family farm that provided traditional goods from Provence.  They have olive trees to make olive oil, grape vines to make wine, beehives to make honey, and oak trees to grow truffles.  Although they run it as a farm, they offer tours centered around the various agricultural products, and we did a December hunt for black truffles.  Our hosts were modern in that they used dogs to hunt for the underground morsels.  Pigs are the older tradition, but pigs like truffles and so they compete with the farmer for the truffles, sometimes to the point that the farmer loses a finger.  Dogs, on the other hand, like the treats presented after finding truffles and could care less about the truffles themselves.  And so modern hunters use dogs.

We followed the host out into the orchard (is that what one calls it?) of oak trees that had been innoculated with truffle spoor in the hope that truffles would eventually grow.  Truffles are wild things and so this is far from a certain thing.  They have to overplant oak trees to get sufficient truffles.  I call them "trees" which is botanically correct, but I think it would be better to think of them as saplings.  Wild truffles are found in the forest, but growing truffles only need oak roots.  

After the hunt, we retired to the farmhouse patio and gorged on truffle specialities, from simple sliced truffles on buttered bread, to truffle oil (olive oil infused with truffles), and truffle honey on ice cream.  The last is pretty novel but it works very well for those seeking truffle immersion.  One of our party was not thrilled with the truffles, so he satisfied himself with the local charmant (champagne made outside the appellation area).  

In the end, we quite enjoyed the whole experience and we "adopted" a truffle tree.  This gives us rights to truffles each year.  Our truffles shipped from France on Monday (harvested on Sunday), and promptly ran into bad weather in the U.S.  Expected on Wednesday, the truffles arrived today (Friday) and we are gathering for the feast.  Truffles have a short shelf life, so one eats them as soon after harvesting as possible.  We get enouhg truffles to have a couple of nights of truffle delights and even a couple of breakfasts.  These are proper black truffles, not the chemicalized variety that comes in jars with chemical additions, so we take care to make dishes that are simple and allow the flavor of the truffle to shine.  We never cook the truffles except as they are warmed by the cooked dish when they are served together.

Anticipating the truffle shipment has become an annual tradition for us, and we usually expand the event with foie gras and other gems.