Truffle

Where it comes from

The black truffle is native to southern Europe and grows with holm oak, French oak, hazel, cherry and other deciduous trees. It fruits from April to June and is harvested from November to March. France, Spain and Italy dominate production. Around 80 per cent of French black truffles come from the southeast — upper Provence, the Drôme, the Gard — and about 20 per cent from Quercy and Périgord, so the Périgord name is bigger than its share. Which species is in our salt, and how much, is a supplier question.

What happened

The ancients could not work out where truffles came from. Plutarch said lightning, warmth and water in the soil; Juvenal credited thunder and rain. In 1825 Brillat-Savarin wrote that the truffle is the diamond of the kitchen, and that no one should confess to having dined where truffles were not. The hunting animal changed: pigs were the old truffle finders — in 1481 Platina wrote that the sows of Notza had no equal but should be muzzled so they would not eat the prize — and dogs are preferred now because they have no strong desire to eat them. The Lagotto Romagnolo was a water dog of the Po delta lagoons, retrained to find truffles when the marshes were drained. In 1808 Joseph Talon of Apt planted seedlings from truffle-bearing oaks, which began truffle farming; by 1890 French plantations covered 750 square kilometres. Production has since fallen enormously, and a study of the Vaucluse found the two World Wars, rural depopulation and changes in land use the main explanations.