Success and possible truffle-farming nuns

So I heard a rumor that someone who bought truffle-infused hazelnut trees from New World Truffieres (same place we got ours) found their first truffle in their farm just east of Sacramento, California this year. The trees are five year old hazelnuts and I think they have 50 trees. I'm not sure how the quality of the truffle is, who found it, or how, but it's good to know the spore survived.

I also heard the Norbertine Sisters and the Bethlehem Convent here in Tehachapi may soon be receiving a gift in the form of some truffle trees. Seems we've started a trend...

The $330,000 Truffle

I know, it's been a while, again. But this time I have a really good excuse: I've been busy having a baby. Yep, Sarah Addison McQuillen, heiress to the truffle throne of Tehachapi, was born on October 16, 2007. She's healthy, happy, and ecstatic to learn that truffle sales are going strong, having recently reached the $100,000 per pound mark. Seriously.

I'm sure you've all heard that some crazy Macauan billionaire bought a three pound white truffle at an auction for $330,000. Here is the Italian truffle hunter holding the monstrosity and cheering at the auction price:I hope to one day be at a casino in Masau have a picture like that taken of me with a famous Tehachapi truffle. And here is the truffle itself:
I guess it had its own photo shoot. It looks quite unappetizing to me. And what exactly does a person do with a 3.3 pound, $330,000 truffle? I haven't found any news stories on what happened to the truffle but I imagine it's been consumed since they are best eaten fresh.

The heir(ess) to the truffle kingdom

Those of you who know either of the truffle queens know that the younger of the two has been busy cultivating the heir(ess) to the yet-to-be realized truffle fortune.

Because I'm fat, bored and tired of waddling around chasing sheep, I decided to start a blog on behalf of the soon-to-emerge young truffle farmer (six weeks to go!!!). I added the link to the right, but if you are lazy or confused, you can also click here to learn what Lentil Bean (what we call the baby) is thinking and doing. It's called Lentil Soup and hopefully will have more entertaining fodder than this site. Enjoy!

What's the deal with Chinese truffles?

Holy cow, has it really been since May since I've posted? Is anybody even still out there reading? If so, this blog's for you...

A friend recently called to tell me about the latest low quality import from China - black truffles. It was only a matter of time before some developing country caught on to our desire to eat hoity toity fungus and decided to capitalize on it. Seeing as how I once lived in China and am now a truffle farmer myself, I thought I'd investigate the burgeoning import market.

First, I googled "Chinese black truffles" and found www.chinesetruffle.com. If you go check them out, you will find that they are not representing the chinese black truffle as the same species as the french black truffle (tuber melanosporum) or any of the other high end truffles. Nope, these have different botanical names, Tuber Sinensis and Tuber Himalayensis, and are a product of China, rather than a European product being introduced in China. This is important to note when you are shopping for them and getting your undergarments in a knot at the thought of the Chinese capitalizing on what we Americans are trying to capitalize on first. Other truffle scientists claim the truffles being cultivated in China are actually Indian truffles known as tuber indicum, that some have compared to a weed or blight due to its resiliency and quick propagation.

This page explains the descriptions of Chinese truffles, going so far as to compare the Tuber Himalayensis with the coveted tuber melanosporum. The pictures look the same to me so I'm sure I could be fooled easily. Here is the pricing page info. At about $10 per kilogram they seem quite reasonable.

Even Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and NPR have recently covered the Chinese Truffle Trifle. Click on Truffle Kerfuffle to read Time's article, which is recommended because it covers both the Chinese and French perspectives and has some funny quotes, like

"Labor is very cheap here," Wu says. "In France they use pigs and dogs to find truffles. We can use humans."

Sucks to be human when your labor is less valued than that of a dog or pig...Then again, when I was in China they ate dogs.

The WSJ's article is shorter and has a couple of quotes from the same Mr. Wu of the Kunming Rare Truffle Company.

NPR has more in-depth coverage in its two-part article by Louisa Lim. She interviewed Mr. Wu and took the picture above. The article also discusses foie gras and force-feeding geese, something I'd never contemplated before today.

If you'd like to take a chance and order a Chinese truffle or two, just for your own amusement and tasting pleasure, here's a link to Alibaba.com's Chinese Truffle page. I'm not kidding, you can buy a chinese truffle from Alibaba. Sounds like a great Christmas gift idea to me...

West Side Story

Believe it or not, we planted (me, Diana and Mark (my new husband) 450 trees in just five days. It all started with Mark running the trencher down 420 feet of property line. He claims he wasn't drunk but the row looks like a sobriety test gone bad to me...Still, a trench is a trench, right?
After that, we put my poor new hubby (less than a week into wedded bliss) to work marking rows and digging holes. Doesn't he look happy?
Diana (Mom) and I then followed with trees, tubes and stakes:
Before we knew it, the first row of oaks was in!!! Isn't it pretty?We crossed the gully to the east side and decided to save 20 spare hazelnuts in pots to replace any we might lose over the next year or so. Plus, we were just too darned tired after planting 450 trees to do another row.
And a few days later, the entire west side of the gully was full of oaks and hazelnuts. How cool will this be in five years???
More as soon as we complete the east side (152 oaks to be exact) and our new favorite pasttime - installing drip irrigation.

Note to future truffle farmers: It's a lot of work planting 600 trees so get some help!!!