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A TRUFFLE ROMANCE It's been raining for a solid week - a good time to be indoors, until the sun returns to reveal snow-capped mountains, emerald hills, meadows painted yellow with mustard. It's late winter in California - the best of times and the worst of times. I was thinking about cooking up some practical cold-weather food, casseroles or stews for the rainy days, the homey things that comfort us. Then a cosmic food experience derailed me, and now I am one of those giddy, hard-to-deal-with people, like someone who has just jumped into an affair. My affair is with fresh truffles. It began in the most innocent way. Reading the L.A. Times, I came across a brief piece about a fellow in Oregon who has successfully cultivated native truffles, and is selling them through a website. Daniel Wheeler is a truffle enthusiast who joined the North American Truffle Society in 1985, and soon after that began inoculating stands of trees with a truffle fungus. Now he is foraging in an 80-acre forest, and finding his Oregon white truffles, as well as blacks and grays. And here's the big news - he's selling them for a mere $30 an ounce! But even though he has had some excellent responses from chefs, Daniel reports that he is not flooded with orders. There is a certain snobbish resistance to the idea of truffles from Oregon, or from anywhere other than the Piedmont or the Perigord. I remember when there was a snobbish resistance to California Cabernet Sauvignons, and you could buy a good one for less than $20. Now they often have release prices knocking on $100 a bottle, and sell out quickly. Of course, if I were an exporter of white truffles from Alba in Italy, or of what the folks in the Perigord affectionately call their black diamonds, and if markets were getting between $100 and $300 an ounce for my fungi, I'm sure I wouldn't want to hear about Daniel Wheeler. Why, he's practically giving them away. But you can't give away what people don't know they want. The larger problem, Daniel told me, is that most people don't actually know what truffles are. I recalled a conversation I had once with a friend who simply couldn't accept that real truffles were not the delicious chocolate confections she loved so much. She was stunned when I explained that these were only the namesakes of a nugget-like fungus which grew under trees, in certain special and tiny areas of the world. I told her that these fungi had complex and potent aromas, earthy and peppery and winey all at once, and were used in the most Epicurean dishes. Yeah, right. I went on: Here's the good part, I said. They are hunted by pigs on leashes, who sniff them out and then must be forcibly restrained while a French or Italian peasant digs out the riches buried under the forest duff. My friend laughed out loud. I don't remember if I ever convinced her that I wasn't making it up. Well - duh. Most of us cannot think about paying several hundred dollars for a lump of fungus, not even if it's called a black diamond, not even for a few shavings scattered over an omelet in a restaurant. On a need-to-know scale, something that could set you back a couple of grand for a small dinner party doesn't rate high for most people. But now - leap forward to Daniel Wheeler, and his dedication to the Oregon white truffle. I felt momentarily sad for his plight, but couldn't help realizing that it was a bonanza for me. If these truffles were even half as good as their cousins from Alba - I wanted some. And what's more, as long as he hadn't yet had the success he surely deserved - I could afford some! I dashed off an e-mail. Daniel replied promptly with exact availability and prices. He'd be happy to express mail my order in a few days, and I could pay him when I got the truffles and was satisfied with them. This was too easy. With the click of the mouse that has gotten many others into trouble with their own objects of desire, I was in the game. The truffles arrived a few days later, neatly packed and identified. I opened the wrapping and smelled them. A pungent, almost intoxicating perfume enveloped me. I breathed deeply, and truffle dishes ran through my mind. Daniel described his white truffles this way: aromas of butter, dried morels, cheddar cheese and fresh roasted hazelnuts. I don't think I could have been so specific, but I was amazed by the rich complexity in the perfume, a fugue of earthy, woodsy, spicy, and even fruity notes. I cleaned the truffles with a mushroom brush, and then buried them entirely in arborio rice, in a tightly covered container. I put them away in the refrigerator for a few days, until the big night. When I opened that container of rice and truffles, the heady aroma surrounded me again. I removed the truffles and smelled the rice by itself - it was deeply infused with the unique perfume. Cooking with truffles is simplicity itself. They marry best with mild-flavored foods that absorb and amplify their taste. Classic truffle dishes tend to be pure in flavor: scrambled eggs with truffles, fresh pasta with truffles, truffled risotto or polenta. Once in France I had a sublime dish that consisted of nothing but steamed whole potatoes with whole black truffles, dressed with a little sweet butter and a sprinkle of salt. It arrived at the table wrapped in a napkin, which was opened to release the marvelous, fragrant steam. Delicate white truffles are best when not cooked at all, but shaved raw over a tender, home-made pasta, or an omelet. They can be stirred into a risotto or scrambled eggs, but should be added at the end of the cooking time, as a finishing touch. I used the already truffle-scented rice, and made the simplest risotto: a bit of onion, slowly melted down in the pan with some butter and oil, then the rice, a tiny dash of sherry, and a very light vegetable broth. Toward the end of the stirring, I began shaving the truffles into paper-thin slices on my cheese grater. The pile grew - what luxury - and the aroma filled the room. I had opened a nice bottle of Italian wine. When the risotto was al dente, I stirred in a small amount of Parmesan cheese, and my lavish mound of shaved truffles. I served the steaming risotto in wide, rimmed bowls, and we sat down - two adults who'd eaten all over the world, and one teenage gourmet-trainee. Would the Oregon truffles come up to the mark? They did. The risotto was heavenly, subtle and at the same time profoundly flavorful. Eating it was a moment of delight. We sipped and chewed and breathed deeply, exclaiming how good it was, like broken records, until we had to laugh and sigh and start again. Now that's comfort food. Daniel has a quotation from Alexandre Dumas posted on his website - "The most learned men have been questioned as to the nature of this tuber, and after two thousand years of argument and discussion their answer is the same as it was on the first day: we do not know. The truffles themselves have been interrogated, and have answered simply: eat us and praise the Lord." I'll be ordering more truffles soon. I think I may be ordering them regularly from now until the end of the season, which is blessedly long. The white truffles are almost finished now, but Daniel tells me that the black ones should be available into the middle of March, and Oregon gray truffles, which don't start until December, are often found until June. If you weren't around when California wines were breaking into the world market and could be had for a song, if you neglected to buy stock in Amazon.com five years ago, if you ever missed the boat on something and watched it climb, here's your chance to get in while the price is still low. Daniel Wheeler's website is called oregonwhitetruffles.com. It is full of enjoyable information, whether or not you decide to order anything. But if you do, tell Daniel that Anna sent you. It won't gain you any influence, but it'll be fun - we'll all feel we know each other, that we're members of the same truffle tribe. |