The Sniff-and-Dig Tradition

CAHORS, France —  It is perhaps significant that the most important technological advance in the French truffle business occurred 76 years ago, when truffle marketer Alain Pebeyre installed spinning steel brushes in a clunky steel drum.

The machine didn’t produce more truffles. Nor did it enhance their earthy, intoxicating aroma and taste. It simply cleaned mud off the black nuggets, at a rate of 100 pounds an hour.

The house of Pebeyre, now run by Alain Pebeyre’s son and grandson, still uses the truffle cleaner. But it doesn’t really need to. Production of black truffles in France has fallen from a high of 800 tons at the turn of the century to fewer than 15 tons last year. The entire annual truffle crop these days could be cleaned by just one of Alain Pebeyre’s machines in less than a month.

With that drop in production, of course, has come a dizzying increase in the price of what are now called “black diamonds” or “black pearls.” A pound of fresh truffles has been selling for about $300 at wholesale this winter; a single truffle, about the size of a golf ball, runs $50 or more at retail stores in Paris. It is a steep price, but one many in France are prepared to pay--if only occasionally--for the lively spark the truffle adds to almost any dish.

“Truffles have been a good business for our family,” observed Alain Pebeyre’s grandson, Pierre-Jean. “But it is not going to be so good in the future. It is never pleasant to be trading in a product that is disappearing.”

The number of black truffles harvested each year is shrinking, and there isn’t a thing that can be done to stop it.

French truffles, or Tuber melanosporum, cannot be planted. Rather, they are born underground near the roots of trees, most often oaks. Their numbers and size depend entirely on climate, and that climate must be perfect. They begin to grow in the spring, and a warm, wet summer and mild autumn are essential for a good crop. They reach maturity after seven to 10 months, and the annual harvest--which might more accurately be described as a search--runs from early December until the end of March.

Truffles cannot be seen; they must be found. But that is a delicate operation.

Gatherers often use pigs, which have a keen sense of smell. Unfortunately, pigs also adore truffles and will eat them if not monitored carefully. For that reason, many gatherers have turned to dogs, which care not a bit for truffles but can be trained to pick up the scent and paw the soil above a truffle.

In addition, some weekend truffle hunters look for swarms of tiny flies that are tantalized by the musky smell. The flies can be found, usually at sunset, dancing in the air just above the hidden black fungus.

The annual crop has been devastated in the last two decades by two trends. Thousands of acres of the forest land where truffles grow have been cleared for farming. In addition, the migration from rural areas to the cities has robbed the region of many of its truffle gatherers.

For much of the last two decades, scientists in Toulouse have studied the life span of truffles and attempted to grow them in the lab. So far, though, no French laboratory truffle has passed muster with the finicky chefs and diners. Last month, a French judge sentenced the head of a private laboratory to a three-month suspended sentence for “lying advertising,” in which he sought investors for what he claimed was a revolutionary way to grow truffles artificially.

Today, the firm founded by Alain Pebeyre’s father a century ago (1897) is run by the third and fourth generation of the family, Jacques Pebeyre and his son Pierre-Jean. The company, the largest devoted exclusively to truffle distribution in the country, has eight employees, including one with a doctorate in biology, and it still operates from a small red-brick building in Cahors, in southwest France.

Jacques and Pierre-Jean spend their winter months roaming the village markets in the region around Cahors, as well as in neighboring Spain, in search of the best truffles. (Many truffles sold under the appellation Perigord these days come from Spain, where T. melanosporum also grows.) They are brought back to a workroom, where the powerful aroma of truffles hangs heavy in the air, clinging to workers’ clothes and wafting out the door and onto the street.

The truffles are sorted, brushed clean, weighed on Roman scales and placed in small chestnut baskets. Orders from the country’s top restaurants, and a few establishments overseas, are jotted in pencil in a dusty journal. Most Paris restaurants receive one or two deliveries a week during the winter season; fresh truffles have a shelf life of about two weeks. The remaining truffles are boiled for sterilization and canned for sale as truffles and as truffle juice during the off-season.

In recent years, the market has been hurt by interloping truffles, primarily from China. The Chinese intruder, T. himalayensis, bears a striking physical resemblance to the French truffle. But it has little of the musky scent of its French cousin and, experts say, can turn unpalatable after only a few days.

Still, the Asian mushroom, at roughly one-fourth the cost of a French truffle, has caused concern in the truffle patch. Chinese truffles have been sold by disreputable dealers, who pour French truffle oil on them and pass them off as the real article. French customs agents say 20 tons of Chinese truffles--more than the French truffle production--were sold in France last year.

“These truffles from 6,000 miles away are not the same, and they are a threat,” said Jacques Pebeyre, a stocky man in a moth-eaten sweater. “But the real threat to our business is ourselves; it is that we no longer produce enough truffles. That is a much more serious problem. There is very little demand for truffles at the prices of today.”

The Pebeyre father and son view these trends with concern. They worry about intruders from other countries but, more than that, they worry about the future of French truffles themselves.

They have invested some money in research, seeking a way to increase production in the wild. They doubt, though, that the unique taste of a truffle can be reproduced in a laboratory.

“This aroma is an aroma of nature,” said Jacques Pebeyre. “It can never be replaced.”

If it cannot be replaced, then the only question that remains is whether the French truffle will survive. And Pierre-Jean Pebeyre wonders whether there will be a fifth generation of truffle marketers in his family.

“Of course, I would like my 7-year-old son--or one of my two daughters--to take over the family business one day,” he said. But, he added, “that can only happen if there are still truffles.”