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A Woodcock, Girolles, A Baguette, and a French Inn

Published by Jonell Galloway + Wednesday, October 23, 2019 Permalink 0

Bécasse, a story in two parts: A Hundred Years of Bécasse: Part I*

I wanted to fix what was wrong, here, in this – this place, this time I remembered so well. When I loved. Where I loved. And yet how ironic as here was where everything started unraveling on the first night of the Bécasse.

The drive into the setting sun from Agen made me wish we hadn’t missed our earlier train. But we had. It was my fault, but how could I leave Paris without visiting Rue Daguerre and picking up a perfect brie, rosy pears, a few chestnuts?

After the hunt: woodcock and hunting dog.

We pulled into the Auberge and barely missed hitting the stone wall. The millhouse still sat undisturbed by time, hell, it was time itself. Flanked by the millpond and the rushing river, the river Gélise coursed through it, cleansing and cooling the fires inside.

Once inside it seemed important not to disturb the shadows and gentle aura by flicking a switch and turning on a light. That would be too easy. I wanted to remember, I had to be careful. With the last little bit of sun on the kitchen, I found a white plate for the bruised tomatoes from the Paris market. The girolle mushrooms looked small and insufficient, but they had survived better than the poor tomatoes; all they needed was heat and a little butter. There was plenty of time for that in the morning. I was already relishing coming down in the morning and hearing the whoosh of the burners.

French baguette/bread.

In the shadows of the kitchen, the baguette might be a knotted tree, the baker’s slashes on the crust that birthed the ears and eyes of the bread. My husband drew the knife from the block and pressed its teeth against the curved length. I gently took it away and slid the saw-toothed beast back in its slot.

“Wait. “ I touched his arm. “Open the wine, while I light a fire?”

“I’m starving!” he said.

I was nervous to get it going, adjusting the air and the draft. The wood was damp, and my mind leaped ahead to the next day and perhaps finding cèpes or porcini in the forest. The bottle slowly emptied. Maybe she wouldn’t let the fire begin again. She being grand-mère. Had she forgiven me? I had kept her secret. I hadn’t told the tale of what happened here. Yet, that time was over now. It was safe to begin again. We sat back and raised our glasses. The flames twirled like the bird in the tapestry, the Bécasse, flying past the whispers of clouds over the moon, and the millhouse.

Cooking woodcocks or bécasse over a wood fire.

The Auberge was unchanged, I breathed, wasn’t it? Twenty years was nothing in a place already hundreds of years old.

Much to his satisfaction we broke the crust, and playfully teased the heels of the baguette over the fire, turning and toasting. Smearing the hot pain with soft cheese.

I peered around the dark room, the fire reflecting our forms in the picture window.

To be continued.

***

*A bécasse in French is a woodcock.

Influenced by French heritage and traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch country where she was born and raised, Dorette Snover graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, was a private chef to the rich and eccentric, a food stylist, NPR commentator, and now teaches les bases de la cuisine at her cooking school, C’est si Bon!

In writing, Dorette’s plat du jour is strong female characters woven from her thirty years in the world of cuisine. and her personal journey through landscapes of culinary history. Dorette also leads tours to France for adults looking for truffles in all the right places and for teens interested in exploring the world through a culinary map.

Truffles in Black and White: Part One: The Truffles of Alba

Published by Jonell Galloway + Saturday, January 18, 2014 Permalink 0

Truffles in Black and White: Part One: The Truffles of Alba, or Italian White Gold

by David Downie, with photos by Alison Harris

The Truffles of Italy’s Piedmont

In the vaulted cellars at Tartufi Morra, the longest-established truffle dealership in Alba, a town of 30,000 in Piedmont 60 kilometers by road south of Turin, manager Alessandro Bonino fielded telephone orders while sorting white truffles still clotted with soil. “Truffles are hypogeous fungi,” Bonino said, waving his left hand, “meaning mushrooms that grow underground.” Of the 60 known species, 25 grow in Italy. Tartufi bianchi d’Alba—white Alba truffles—are the rarest, most aromatic and, the businesslike Bonino confirmed, by far the most expensive.

“White truffles only grow wild and only in a limited geographical area,” Bonino explained to me. “That’s why they’re so scarce and costly, and also why the statistics on them aren’t reliable—how do you tabulate them when their surrounded by secrecy?”

Alba’s Centro Nazionale Studi Tartufi (CNST), a government-funded research agency, estimates average Italian truffle production per year for all edible species at 400 tons, including about 40 tons of premium tartufo nero (Tuber melanosporum), the black truffles of northern and central Italy, half of which are farmed. In an exceptionally good year the southwest of France also produces about 40 tons of nearly identical melanosporum, the northeast of Spain 20 tons, in both cases 80 to 90 percent farmed. Harvests for the last decade or more for Italian, French and Spanish melanosporum have been small, with wholesale prices ranging between 650-1,200 euros per kilo.

By comparison white truffles occur only near Alba and in other parts of Piedmont, and, in far smaller quantities, in the Acqualagna area of the Marches, the province of Savona on the Italian Riviera, and in Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary. In an average year about 2 tons are found overall, though, as Bonino noted, statistics are notoriously unreliable. Wholesale prices in the 2010-2011 season range from an astonishing 3,000 to 4,000 euros per kilogram, about the same as Sevruga caviar.

As with caviar, demand far outstrips supply for prized white and black truffles. Bonino sells both.

Black and white truffles are not as different as apples and oranges, according to Bonino and others in the business. Comparing them is tricky. “All truffles are mushrooms. Preference is strictly personal, a question of taste, budget and use.”

White Alba truffles are actually pale to straw yellow. They look and feel like small, warty potatoes. Their scientific name is Tuber magnatum pico. Though unwieldy the name is widely used in commerce to avoid confusion with other pale-colored species.

The white truffle season runs from late September to mid-February. Except during the war years 1939-1945, in the second half of October since 1929 Alba has hosted the Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo (International Truffle Fair). The fair lasts two weeks, drawing tens of thousands of visitors. It has helped make white truffles synonymous with the town and the surrounding Langhe, a region of tuck ‘n’ roll hills where most white truffles are found.

As is typical, during a November visit to the Piedmont I experienced cold, damp weather. Wearing a woolen sweater the trim, middle-aged Bonino led me through the Tartufi Morra cellar to a room where an assistant in a blue lab coat hand-brushed white truffles, rinsed them under cold, running water and placed them on a drainboard. Bonino demonstrated how to gauge the firmness of a truffle, pinching one between forefinger and thumb. “When ripe, truffles white or black are as firm as tennis balls,” he said. “Too hard and they’re unripe. Too soft and they’re overripe.”

The smell and flavor of a ripe, healthy white truffle evokes mild garlic, honey, hay and fresh mushrooms. Scents of ammonia, humus or mold indicate rot.

“For security and conservation the bulk of our truffles are cellared,” Bonino added. “With all truffles the soil stays on until we prepare them for shipping. They’re 80 percent water. Soil preserves humidity.” Unbrushed, unwashed truffles last 7 to 10 days in a cool, dark room. Brushed and washed, they should be used within a few days. “Diamonds are forever, truffles are for now,” Bonino quipped, nostrils flaring.

Upstairs in the retail shop a few fresh white truffles covered by a moist cloth were in a refrigerated case. Canned or bottled whole truffles, truffled purées, pâtés, chocolates and olive oil filled shelves. Such transportable, long-lasting products appeal to many consumers, especially tourists, and allow truffle sellers to work year-round. Natural truffle essence, derived from fresh truffles, is the Holy Grail of researchers and retailers but has yet to be perfected. Most top-end shops like Tartufi Morra do not sell artificial truffle flavoring, an ersatz substitute scorned by serious Piedmontese chefs and food lovers.

Outside in the medieval tangle of streets, truffle scents wafted from restaurants and food shops. The enjoyment of white truffles is primarily an olfactory experience. During white truffle season Alba is a delight to the nose, and the scent is free for the taking.

Formerly plentiful and cheap, since at least the 1300s truffles, particularly white truffles, have been prized in Piedmontese cuisine. Scarcity and cost have not thinned the ranks of cultish truffle lovers. The half-dozen chefs in and near Alba I met during my 5-day visit concurred that white truffles lose potency and flavor when cooked and therefore should be eaten raw.

At Villa Tiboldi, a restaurant and B&B where I stayed, near Canale, equidistant from Alba and Turin, chef Stefano Pagagnini dressed fresh tagliolini with melted butter, set a digital scale on my table, weighed a white truffle then quickly shaved approximately 10 grams off it onto the pasta. “The heat releases the raw truffle’s scent,” he explained. “Smell is most of the experience. Simple food like pasta is best because it doesn’t overwhelm the truffle.”

Pagagnini was right. The luscious simplicity of the dish exalted the truffle’s aroma, which subtly evoked garlic, honeysuckle and mushroom. Flavors and aromas melded. I was unable to separate them. Even when I lifted a truffle shaving off the pasta and tasted it alone the sensations came almost entirely through my nose.

The photos in this series of articles on truffles were taken by Alison Harris. You can see the entire set as a slide show in Food Art: Behind the Scenes of the Noble Truffle, food photography by Alison Harris.

Next segment: truffle hunters.