The good oil on truffles

Dubbed “the diamond of the kitchen” by 18th-century French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, truffles remain highly-prized food.

The fungal fruiting bodies that are truffles develop underground and are usually found growing in close association with trees.

The first mention of the fungus stretches as far back as the third millennium BC. There are now truffle-growing areas in Australia, New Zealand, France, the US, Spain, Sweden, Chile, and the UK, including in specially-planted truffle fields. Hunting for truffles in open ground is usually carried out with the help of trained pigs or dogs.

For culinary use, chefs generally brush the fungus carefully and shave it or dice it with the skin on. It’s also adapted for use as truffle oil and truffle vodka.

Here, BISTRO outlines some of the famed fungus’s varieties…

WHITE TRUFFLES

Also known as Alba madonna (or Tuber magnatum), this pale variety comes from the Piedmont region of Italy and Croatia’s Istria peninsula.

The highly-regarded truffle – similar in status to France’s black variety – has a pale cream or brown flesh, with white marbling. It’s generally served raw and shaved over pasta or salads or is inserted into meats.

The fungus “fruits” in autumn, growing alongside oak, hazel, poplar and beech trees. It can reach 12cm in diameter and 500g in size, though tends to be much smaller in general.

The record price paid for a single white truffle was $AUD360,000 by Macau businessman Stanley Ho in December 2007. The specimen weighed in at 1.5kg and was unearthed near the Italian city of Pisa.

Last December, the pale truffles were being sold for about $AUD15,000 a kilo. Not a bad day at the office.

There are a few other white truffle varieties in Italy, but none are as aromatic as those from Piedmont.

BLACK TRUFFLES

The black Périgord truffle (Tuber melanosporum) grows with oak and is named after France’s Périgord region.

The variety is unearthed in autumn and winter, reaching 7cm in diameter and weighing up to 100g. Its flavour is less pungent than that of white truffles.

Production is almost exclusively European – including in France (mostly upper Provence), Spain, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia – although, locally, Tasmania and Western Australia also grow the variety.

Buying is busiest in France in January, when the black truffles have their highest perfume. The variety was selling for about $AUD5000 per kilo there this year.

CHINESE TRUFFLES

China harvests a winter, black variety of truffles, known as Tuber sinensis or Tuber indicum. Being quite bountiful, however (unlike the Périgord variety), they’re often exported to the Western world as an inferior substitute.

Another type of Chinese truffle is the Tuber himalayensis, remarkably similar to the black Périgord variety in appearance, though, of course, less frequently seen on the world markets. It’s harvested in very small quantities in the Chinese Himalayas.

A third type of Chinese truffle is its summer, white variety, which is yet to be given a scientific name, but is said to be juicy in taste, with a lasting aroma.

SUMMER TRUFFLES

There are black, summer truffles (Tuber aestivum/unicinatum) that thrive in northern Italy, central Europe and the UK, as well as popping up in Turkey and North Africa.

This variety doesn’t have as strong an aroma or taste as the winter truffles, but is still prized for its culinary use, selling for about $AUD1200 a kilo.

Harvested from June to November, the truffles grow alongside tree varieties like oaks, hazels and beech, weigh up to 30g, and can reach 4cm in diameter.

AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND TRUFFLES

In the southern hemisphere, the first black truffles (Tuber melanosporum) to be harvested were in New Zealand’s Gisborne in 1993.

Australia followed suit by growing the variety in Tasmania in 1999, implanting trees with the fungus and sparking a local industry. This June, Tasmanian growers Michael and Gwynneth Williams harvested Australia’s largest truffle, weighing 1.084 kg and valued at $AUD1500 a kilo.

On the other side of Oz, Western Australia’s The Wine and Truffle Co had its first harvest in 2004. The company has since widened its production, extending into Victoria and New South Wales.