Digging deeper for truffles

PARIS:France is not a religious country. So, while Christmas and the New Year are accorded the respect they deserve, the French don't overdo it. On the other hand, December and January do have a quasi-religious significance for another reason: c'est la saison de la truffe - it's the truffle season.

Truffles are imbued with an almost mystical importance in France.

However, all wonder aside, more and more of the truffles being eaten in France are not produced in the Périgord or in Provence, or even, for those who accept second-best, in the Piemonte region of Italy. Instead, they're coming from China.

When it comes to the cost - French home-grown "black diamonds" already cost at least €1,000 per kilo, while the Chinese equivalents cost just €150 per kilo.

It's their rarity that makes French truffles expensive. Because nobody has ever succeeded in growing them commercially, there's no certainty from year to year about the size of the crop, which is never large anyway.

Over the past decade it's averaged 50 tonnes a year, while this year it's expected to be just 40 tonnes. They are, therefore, at a premium this year.

China, by contrast, is now exporting some 70 tonnes of truffles a year - of which, ironically, around 40 tonnes are imported into France.

Truffles from China are nothing special; they've traditionally been used as animal fodder. When Chinese exporters realised their value, they began by paying around €1 per kilo to their native producers, and even now that the market is growing, they still pay only €8 or €9 per kilo. In the village of Terrasson, in the heart of the Périgord in southwest France, one local truffle dealer has a sign saying: "Truffes de Chine - €150 le kg".

The problem now, though, is that Chinese truffles are being mixed with, or sold as, French truffles, for the going rate of €1,000 per kg.

"We are not saying that Chinese truffles should not be allowed to come into France," Michel Queyroi, president of the Truffle Growers' Association in Périgord told The Irish Times. "We are saying only that they must be properly identified and not passed off as what they are not - the genuine French article."