Exotic Foods (2) Truffles and Morels

This black truffle from Perigord in France might not look like much, but good truffles sell for more than $500 a pound.

Chefs on the Food Network are always cooking with truffles and morels. A truffle is a wild, edible fungus that grows in some wooded areas, mostly associated with oak trees. The best truffles are either black, from Perigord in France, or white, from Tuscany in Italy. Naturally, both the French and the Italians claim superiority for their type of truffle, but both agree that, although truffles grow in other places, such as the USA and China, they are of inferior quality. Truffles can cost more than $500 per pound, so you can imagine that most home cooks have never laid eyes on one, much less cooked it. A morel is a mushroom with a long, conical, wrinkled cap on a thick stem. Sometimes the caps are a light reddish brown, while others are a very dark brown. Fresh morels can be found in some parts of the United States. I have only ever seen them dried in a little plastic bag. I have never eaten morels, but once I had a dish of angel hair pasta with sauteed vegetables that had a miniscule amount of white truffle shaved over the top. There was so little of it that I couldn't tell you what it tasted like, but the dish as a whole was delicious.




The truffle is surrounded by a jargon and culture similar to that of wine. Connoisseurs speak fluently of black truffles and white truffles, summer truffles and winter truffles, of the best way to slice or shave truffles, and what dishes to put them in. They also discuss their aroma, which is usually described as "earthy." Everyone seems to agree that white truffles have a stronger aroma than black truffles. Truffles are hunted, using a trained dog or female pig to sniff out the aromatic fungi. Dogs are preferred in Italy, while pigs are the hunter of favor in France. There does seem to be agreement that it's harder to get a newly discovered truffle away from a pig than a dog. As is the case with other sought-after wild mushrooms, such as morels, chanterelles, and cepes, the hunters keep their best patches secret and have been known to come to blows over disputed truffle ground. Surprisingly, both truffles and morels can be farmed. In fact, there is an internet site that gives precise instructions for propagating morels. No one seems to want to talk about this, no doubt because their price depends on their being rare and difficult to gather.



Truffles are available both fresh and preserved, often in bottles or little cans. Morels can be found fresh in various places in the United States, but most often they are found in the dried form. There is also a truffle oil that less wealthy cooks can use to give truffle flavor to a dish.

The cost and desirability of truffles has led to truffle fraud. Some people have concocted fake truffles, and Chinese truffles are sometimes given a darker color to pass them off as black truffles. The truffle has also given rise to a related industry, the truffle hunt for tourists, which is very popular in Tuscany. If you have the time and the money, and a taste for truffles and adventures, an Italian truffle hunter and his dog will take you out into the woods of Tuscany to search for white truffles.


This description could not be complete without mentioning the other kind of truffle, the one that doesn't cost a fortune and gives pleasure to many, the chocolate truffle. This is basically a chunk of chilled chocolate ganache roughly shaped into a sphere and dusted with cocoa powder. Of course, this basic recipe has been the subject of endless variation. One thing is certain, people may make pigs of themselves over chocolate truffles, but it doesn't take a pig to find them.