The world's most expensive food

Daphne Caruana Galizia visits Alba in Piemonte during the truffle season.

Truffles, concealed mysteriously beneath the ground, inspire passion and pleasure and outrageous behaviour: like that of the restaurateur who bought a very large specimen for a phenomenal sum of money at auction, and then locked it in a safe where it mouldered, becoming inedible. Truffle fanatics will tell you that the scent of a white truffle is a perfume like no other, permeating the surroundings in which it is kept. And so it is. When we entered the premises of Tartuflanghe outside Alba in Piemonte, where Domenica Bertolusso and Beppe Montarano run their truffle delicacies business with their daughter Stefania, their son Paolo, and his fiancée Veronica Giraudo, the scent is unmistakable and all-pervasive. Veronica gingerly brings out a wooden box and there, wrapped in a dishcloth to keep the moisture in, are around 25 very small white truffles, which represent the collective spoils of 200 truffle hunters. She weighs one and prices it: 370 euros. Black truffles are less expensive but they are not as sought-after. Black and white truffles are completely different, “like apples and pears”, says Veronica.

The truffle is a hypogean fungus (called that because it grows underground) that absorbs its nutrition from the roots of the trees among which it grows. Its colour, flavour and scent vary according to the tree from which it takes its nourishment. Its shape depends on whether it has grown in hard or soft soil: soft soil allows it to take on its natural roundish shape; hard soil means that it has to force its way through to grow, giving it a knobbly shape. The white Alban truffle is not actually white, but pale grayish to light brown, sometimes with pink veining. It is a parasite that takes its nourishment from the tree roots among which it grows, and the flavour and colour change according to the kind of tree.

The Montanaros set up Tartuflanghe in 1975 in Piobesi, a small village in the Roero, a few kilometres from Alba. The centre is dedicated to the research and production of good things for the table. They had been in the truffle business since 1968, selling fresh truffles from Piemonte, and their restaurant, Da Beppe, in the heart of Alba, was described by the Michelin guide as a reference point for lovers of truffle-based cuisine. The restaurant has since been sold, and the couple and their grown-up children are driving forward this business, which produces truffle specialities that are sold all over the world. Domenica, Paolo and Veronica travel constantly, marketing and promoting their products. Last year, Paolo and Veronica spent three months in San Francisco’s Bay Area, tirelessly promoting truffle oil, truffle pasta, truffle honey, and their Piemontese sauces until sales had tripled. Even at home in Alba, they are constantly on the move, speaking to customers, dealing with restaurateurs and shopkeepers and airport delicatessens, hosting journalists and researchers. Veronica’s earlier training as a tourist guide (she speaks perfect English and is relentlessly charming) serves her well as export manager.

In the 18th century, the Piedmontese truffle was considered by the courts of Europe to be a choice delicacy. Truffle-hunting became court entertainment, with the participation of guests and foreign ambassadors posted to Turin. The Savoyard kings, Vittorio Amedeo II and Carlo Emanuele III were assiduous truffle hunters. Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, who worked for the unification of Italy, made use of the truffle as a tool of diplomacy. The composer Gioacchino Rossini (see Eating with Rossini) called it the Mozart of funghi. Lord Byron is said to have kept a truffle on his desk during his Italian sojourn because the perfume inspired him. Alexandre Dumas called the truffle the Sancta Santorum of the table.

Now the Montanaros have the market backing and the confidence to go into foods that are not necessarily truffle-based: salsa Caterina, ragu di carne alla Piemontese, cugna, bagno cauda, pasta with Barolo wine. In 1990, they had already made the world’s first truffle pasta, which was voted the best new product at the Fancy Food Show in New York. It uses four eggs and one yolk for every kilo of flour, made from semolina durum wheat from south Italy, and it is mixed with truffle water instead of ordinary water. Boiled until soft, which is how the Piemonte like their pasta, and not al dente, all it needs is butter to make a subtly delicious meal. Butter and not olive oil is the thing, Veronica assures me, because the cuisine of Piemonte uses this fat primarily and not olive oil, which belongs further south where the olive tree is king. Their painstakingly (and very expensive) experiments have yielded some remarkable results, including freeze-drying of Barolo wine for use in the making of dry pasta. Blast-freezing, which was developed by NASA to feed its astronauts in space, is a process they already use for truffles and their prepared risottos. It’s how the taste and colour are preserved while the maximum amount of water is withdrawn. Sun-drying, Paolo Montanaro explains, is nowhere near as effective because it doesn’t remove all the moisture, and besides that, the taste is completely changed. Sitting in their laboratory-cum-strongroom there is a sealed bag containing freeze-dried Barolo: large reddish flakes that look as though they have dropped off a fresco in a medieval chapel. “We are the only people in the world who do this,” says Paolo. Their equipment was in fact developed for the pharmaceutical industry, and was adapted for food use. Freeze-drying one kilo of white truffles results in 180g of the dried stuff. There in that strongroom was a bag containing 12 kilos of freeze-dried white truffles (reduced from 120 kilos of the fresh fungus). Somebody brought out a mobile phone and on its calculator, worked out the truffle value that unprepossessing bag represented: the equivalent of Lm8,500. No wonder it was locked up.

Piemonte means literally ‘(at the) foot of the mountains’. It was ruled by the Royal House of Savoy until the middle of the 19th century, and its language and cuisine have been heavily influenced by France.

Ten years ago, because the numbers of truffles are decreasing sharply every year – they only grow among the roots of certain trees, and many of the trees have been cut down to make way for highly lucrative vineyards – the Montanaros developed a project with the Centre for Truffle Studies in Alba and the University of Torino: a tartufaia, or truffle-growing woodland. The family planted trees – oak, sweet chestnut, hazel, lime, and hornbeam – all of which are perfect for truffles, on a small hill in the Roero area, in soil that is free of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. The tartufaia is now an attraction for visitors to the Tartuflanghe production centre. White truffles cannot be cultivated, but the spores of black truffles can be injected into the roots of potential host-trees, and after a patient wait of seven years, you will know whether your attempt has been successful.

At Roddi near Alba, there used to be a school to train dogs as truffle-hunters. It was the world’s only such school, and it was known locally as ‘the university of the truffle hounds’. Hounds underwent a rigorous selection process, including the stipulation that they had to be mongrels, and no more than eight months old. The puppy was left hungry for two days, then asked to fetch a ball of rags. If it did so, it was given a scrap of bread. The exercise was repeated over and over again. The rags were gradually replaced by pieces of truffle, so that the dog would memorise the scent. Then the truffles were hidden to make the task more difficult. The dog had taken on board by this time the link between the truffle scent and the bread. Then the dog was taken out into the woods and made to find truffles buried at a depth of 20cm. Very few dogs succeed in making it through the training, and those that do are much sought-after.

Gourmands and other lovers of truffles come from all over the world to Alba, once the Roman town of Alba Pompeia, the heart of truffle-hunting territory, in the autumn. It's the truffle season and every restaurant in town – and most of those in towns and villages in the region – have truffles on the menu. Though they sell in the markets at phenomenal prices, giving them the moniker of the world’s most expensive food (neck and neck with Beluga caviar), restaurateurs make no money from serving them to patrons. Putting a mark-up on a truffle bought for a huge sum from the truffle-hunter will price the meal beyond what all but the most extravagant will pay for it. So, truffles are shaved over typical Piemontese dishes made with eggs, meat, pasta or rice, and charged at cost per shaving. Those who know enough to buy their own truffles from market vendors will take their personal truffle to the restaurant. This practice is encouraged, rather than frowned upon. It’s all part of the truffle experience.

The truffle festival of Alba, held in October, is a magnet for restaurant-owners and truffle dealers. It is the best-known truffle fair internationally, perhaps because the white truffles of Alba are ranked as the world’s finest – thanks in part to the huge public relations nous of Giacomo Morra, once known as the truffle king, who first hit on the idea of marketing Alban white truffles globally. One of his tactics was to offer them as prestigious gifts to icons like Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, Rita Hayworth, Ike Eisenhower, Brigitte Bardot, Alfred Hitchcock, and even Pope John XXIII. Harry Truman, when he was US president, ordered the head of the White House catering staff to sign a five-year truffle supply agreement with Morra. Marilyn Monroe put it in her own personal style, with a letter that said: “Darling Mr Morra, I received your splendid Tuber magnatum and I truly have to say that I have never eaten anything tastier or more exciting. A special thanks to you for the pleasure you have given me. Your devoted, fondest, Marilyn.” The Readers Digest Selection of March 1953, which had a circulation of millions, made Giacomo Morra and the white truffles of Alba famous throughout the world, most notably in America, and that was it. Now every autumn the best restaurants in the world’s greatest cities serve white truffles from Alba.

Dogs are used to hunt truffles, and not pigs. Pigs only find truffles by accident rather than by intention, and they cannot be trained like dogs. They do not respond to commands from their owners, and as one truffle hunter put it, “Can you imagine going out with a pig on a leash?”
The Langhe, the area where Alba is located, is magical in the autumn, situated as it is in territory that perfectly illustrates the phrase ‘season of swirling mists’, with its verdant valleys and rolling hills. Its oak woods shelter large numbers of wild boar, and its hazelnut groves are famous. The proximity of such a bountiful and regular supply of hazelnuts is beneficial to Ferrero, whose main production plant is in Alba. “You always know when they are making Nutella and Ferrero Rocher,” says Veronica, “because the smell of hazelnuts and chocolate settles over the town.” The highest hills have captivating medieval villages perched on top, and others have fairytale castles from which counts and feudal barons controlled their domain and the passage through the valleys. The Langhe’s vineyards at this time are changing colour as the leaves turn to red, purple, yellow and golden-brown. In damp weather and with temperatures that made thick, rainproof clothing necessary, a drive through the hills and valleys to the Castello di Grinzane Cavour, where the Counts of Cavour held sway, had even more charm than it would have had in bright sunshine. With crows cawing overhead, we stood and looked out over miles of vineyards. The castle now serves as the meeting-place for the Cavallieri del Tartufo (yes, really), who come together regularly to plot the furtherance of the Alban truffle. Beppe Montaranaro is a Truffle Cavalier. To the west of the Tanaro valley – the Tanaro is the river that courses through – lie the dramatic peaks of the French Alps, one of which is the trademark for Paramount films.

If truffles are not collected at the proper time, they will have little flavour and aroma. This ‘proper time’ is when the spores of the fungus are mature enough for release. Dogs trained on the aroma of a fungus that is ripe for eating will seek and find only these.

In tiny Alba, the one main street, Vittorio Emanuele, is packed with delicatessens selling all manner of delights, including truffle products, nougat, oils, chocolates, fresh pasta, rice grown in Piemontese territory, porcini mushrooms, bunches of grapes, and of course, wine and more wine. Looming over all this are the medieval towers which, with the white truffle, are the hallmark of the town. Alba is alive with people, food, wine and music even in the pouring rain. Halfway down Via Vittorio Emanuele is the entrance to the ancient courtyard where the Mercata dei Tartufi is held. This is the principle truffle market in the whole of Italy. Transactions take place before dawn, in something that seems like a covert operation for illegal substances. Truffle hunters huddle over their precious goods. Truffle-buyers, most of them restaurant owners, haggle and argue. There are arguments. There is mistrust. There is plenty of skulduggery. And with prices so high – two euros a gram when we were there – and with truffles getting rarer all the time, this is to be expected. Paolo tells how, because truffles are sold when still dirty with soil (which keeps the humidity in), they find themselves buying earth at truffle prices. Shaking his head, he explains how he once kept aside all the soil he had brushed off the truffles bought from the market, and weighed it: 22 kilos.

There are many kinds of truffle, but the favourites for cuisine are the white truffle of Alba (Tuber magnatum pico), the black winter truffle (Tuber melanosporum Vitt. – the rare black truffle), the black summer truffle (Tuber aestivum Vitt. – the Scorzone truffle), and the bianchetto truffle (Tuber borchii). The first book about the white truffles of Alba was published in 1780. This is when it was given the scientific name Tuber magnatum pico – Vittorio Pico having been the scholar who first classified it. In 1831 in Milan, Carlo Vittadini, a naturalist at the botanic gardens of Pavia, published his Monographia Tuberacearum, in which he described 51 species of truffle.

The truffle-hunter, or trifulau, uses a highly-trained dog to track down truffles under cover of darkness. He keeps a truffle diary, jotting down notes about the moon, the time of night, and the place where he found his truffles. One year later, he is likely to find another truffle in the same place and at precisely the same time. Because of stiff competition for fewer and fewer truffles – there are 11,000 licensed truffle hunters and many more who are unlicensed – this all takes place in great secrecy. Last year was very bad for truffles, Veronica tells me. There was no rain in the summer and the soil was too dry. This summer, though, was very good, with plenty of rain. Veronica takes us to meet Silvio the truffle-hunter and his dog, a white bracco Italiano, or Italian pointer. What’s his name, we ask, and it turns out that he is called Fido, just like all the dogs in Italian grammar books at school. As pointers go, he is very Italian: relaxed, moving at a leisurely pace, and a little on the heavy side. The rewards he gets for finding truffles explains the excess fleshiness, though he walks for miles on a daily basis. We are all enchanted by Fido, who repeatedly gives his back to the camera so as to paw and lick those trying their best to pose with him. Silvio explains that his dog understands only Piemontese, and will not respond to commands in ordinary Italian.

The truffle is a famed aphrodisiac, though that quality is probably due to the thrill of eating something so precious, rare and costly. In his meditations on The Physiology of Taste, Auguste Brillat-Savarin wrote: “The truffle may, on certain occasions, render women more tender and men more loveable.” It probably worked in exactly the same way as a piece of beautiful jewellery.

Silvio is in his 70s, and has been tracking down truffles since he was five years old. He comes from a long line of truffle-hunters, and is an expert dog-trainer, training 150 dogs in truffle-hunting every year. So many are needed because there is a high turnover of them, due to not-so-accidental death. Rival truffle hunters kill each other’s dogs, the usual method being to feed them a sponge soaked in a substance that fools the dog into thinking that it is food. The sponge swells in the gut or stomach and kills the dog. Silvio’s memory is landmarked with exceptional truffle finds: one that weighed 1.6 kilos in 1957, finding 12 kilos of truffles in 1944 and not having enough space in his bag to take them all home. Even in the 1970s, Silvio found 12 kilos of truffles a week. Now he says he is lucky if he finds 12 kilos a year. The Langhe is not what it was, he says. There are more vines than trees, and the weather is getting warmer. There is not enough rain. All the truffle hunters are elderly, like Silvio. It is a dying trade. Young people, he says, are not interested. They don’t want to be up all night every autumn, in the cold and the rain, walking through the woods for miles with a dog as their only companion, and then going to their full-time job during the day.

Truffles are not available in Malta. The great expense and the need to consume them within a few days of being pulled from the earth, makes their sale impractical here – though they are sometimes flown in for special culinary events. White Alban truffles are eaten raw, thinly shaved over risotto, egg dishes, tajarin (egg pasta) or meat dishes.

The way things are going, the arcane arts of truffle-hunting will pass away at around the same time that truffles do so because of changing environmental conditions and different land use. By that time, the price of truffles will have gone right through the roof.

Tartuflanghe snc - Loc. Catena Rossa, 7
12040 Piobesi d’Alba (CN) +39 0173 362 627
www.tartuflanghe.com - tartuflanghe@tartuflanghe.com

For information on distribution of Tartuflanghe products in Malta, call 99420059.

Ente Turismo Alba Bra Langhe Roero +39 0173 358 33
www.langheroero.it - info@langheroero.it

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