Truffled White Bean Soup
Chat about beans and truffles followed by a simple and delicious autumnal soup.For full recipe click here.
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Hi Neil, loved the recipe and the presentation. By the way, I think I read recently that some enterprising chap in Australia has succeeded in seeding the truffle fungal spores in Oz so that Australian white truffles are appearing in European markets. Is it true?
Mac said this on October 21st, 2006 at 6:45 am
There have been rumours regarding seeding of truffles going round for years! Most recently there was a chap called Paul Thomas featured on “The Dragon’s Den” who successfully pitched for £75,000 to start up his truffle farm in France.
Other than that common belief is that they cannot be cultivated. Truffles are however found in six of the seven continents—none have been found on Antarctica, yet. Chinese black truffles, which are often passed off as higher quality French fungi, have been in the marketplace for years. Special pigs or dogs are typically employed to root out the fragrant fungi—with the downside being that they often eat the truffles before they can be picked up by the eager hunters.
For now then, until trials are proved successful we must presume that truffles can’t be cultivated and are only found in the wild, growing underground near certain types of oak trees.
I will leave you with the thoughts of the French 19th Century writer Alexandre Dumas…
“The most learned men have been questioned as to the nature of this tuber, and after two thousand years of argument and discussion their answer is the same as it was on the first day: we do not know. The truffles themselves have been interrogated, and have answered simply: eat us and praise the Lord.”
Info about Paul Thomas: www.plantationsystems.com & www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/episode4.shtml Info about truffles: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truffle Info about Australian Truffles: abc.net.au/science/scribblygum/june2002/default.htm
gastronautics said this on October 22nd, 2006 at 4:56 am