Black Truffles in the Périgord, France

The Dordogne (also called the Périgord) is famous for its black truffle, that delicious underground fungus that grows symbiotically with tree roots, such as oak, beech, and hazel. It is the ingredient that enchants savory dishes from omelets to roasted chickens to pea soup. Winter is its time and from November to February truffles begin to appear in the weekly town and village markets throughout the Dordogne.

When I first came to southwestern France, an elderly woman I sat next to in a café in Sarlat told me how in December she would gather black truffles in a forest near her farm and take them to market, hoping for a good month so that her family could afford the festive foods of Christmas. She then leaned in and whispered, “If you are saving your Euros for a truffle, save them for truffles in late January or February. That’s when the truffle season peaks.”

I heeded her advice. I also learned that January and February are the months when it is easiest to find the truffles, even if you don’t have a dog or a pig to help.

A friend from Sarlat who is a truffle expert with his own truffière—truffle trees—taught me. He explained that there are telltale signs. One is of little flies that aggregate about the ripe truffle. If you see a delirious buzz about the ground around one of the trees that are symbiotic with the black truffle, you are in the vicinity of a culinary gold mine.

But another sign, one that is sure even if the flies have not yet arrived, is a slight ground swell that wasn’t there before. This of course requires patience and close study. A true truffler will know every contour of his territory and notice subtle changes to it. It enters the realm of mindfulness meditations, which explains why the truffle hunters I’ve met are some of the most grounded and calm people I know.

 

When you’ve located a ground swell, you lean in and the next sign should be a pricking in the nostrils of that unmistakable and strangely earthy and otherworldly scent that arouses all manner of romantic images.

Once you have this expensive fungus, how do you handle it? I have only once purchased a truffle and the truffle hunter told me her two favorite applications: grated into scrambled eggs or sliced thinly and placed on top of foie gras toasts.

Fortunately, annually Sarlat holds a truffle festival in the middle of January and regional chefs prepare all manner of recipes with the black truffle, allowing people to sample its diversity without going broke. (It’s like a truffle tapas party where little plates and glasses of partnered wine can be purchased for a few Euros at a time.)

With all this serious research—including some excellent treks into the region’s wild forests—I can now say that my favorite recipe comes from that same lady in the café. This is the recipe her family enjoyed as appetizers in flush years for New Year’s Eve and it is the simplest and most sublime of recipes because nature has done all the work:

Canapés aux truffes:

A fresh baguette, sliced into disks

A black truffle, sliced thinly

Good quality sweet butter

Sea salt

Brut champagne

Butter the bread and layer on the truffle slices. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Enjoy with friends and a glass of dry champagne.

Bon Appetite!

Moroccan Mountain Adventures with a Feminist Friend

I’d known Fatima since I’d lived in Morocco eighteen years ago. Though we wrote only intermittently, when I returned to Morocco two winters ago to teach anthropology and travel writing to American college students, she and I bonded again and picked up where we’d left off.  She was in Rabat, where I’d touched in briefly, and then I was in Fez.

One day, Fatima called. “I’m driving to Fez. Let me take you away for a day. You need a break from the city and from teaching duties.”   

Fatima loves her country and simultaneously feels it has a long way to go for its women. Her proposal promised adventures.

I’ll never forget her indignity, eighteen-years back, as she and I stood on the train platform in Rabat waiting for the train to the south where I’d spend the weekend with her and her family. She had killer legs and was wearing a skirt that fell above the knee. Men were swooning. She looked at me and said, “These legs,” she swept her arm up and down for effect, “get me into a lot of trouble.” I admired her panache and that it never occurred to her to wear a longer hem in order to skirt out of trouble. She didn’t buy into the gender restrictions of her culture and wanted to change it one law and one leg at a time.

She hadn’t changed one bit.

As she signed off, she added, “I want to take you to the countryside, to show you The Big Waloo.” This was Fatima’s experience of God: An open vista of breathtaking mountains. Waloo in Moroccan Arabic means “nothing.” The Big Nothing.

Shortly after we left Fez, Fatima told me about a local mineral spring she wanted me to experience. “It’s the real thing, full of well-being and very local.”

She suddenly saw a little boy carrying a pail on the roadside and careened to a stop.

“Hello. Where are you going?”

“To the spring.”

“For water?"

“No, to take a bath.”

“You don’t have running water at home?”

“No.”

The feminista-Morocco-lover surged.

“Why aren’t you in school?”

“I have no father and three siblings. I have to help my mother.”

“Is she sick?”

“No.”

“How old is she?”

“Thirty-five.” He said hesitantly.

“So,” recapped Fatima, “She is young, healthy, and capable of working but she has you do it? Where do you live? I want to talk to this mother of yours.”

The boy trembled. He just wanted a bath. Fatima softened.

“Okay, listen, promise me, when you go home, talk to your mother. Tell her that you will make more money when you have an education. Tell her from me that she should get off her bum…”

I interrupted in English, “Maybe that’s enough. It’s his mother...” 

She looked at me angrily, “Yes! And I’m making her a better one!”

We left the youth at the spring and again were on our way to The Big Waloo, Fatima’s favorite lookout point in the Middle Atlas, when we picked up a policeman walking in the rain.

This grown man in uniform, one who’d gone to school and made more money, got the same treatment.

“Why are you walking in the rain? You’ll catch a cold.”

“It’s the only way to get to the residence where I’m a guard.”

 “Is there no other way?”

“Well, I have no car. Walking is fine, except when it rains.”

The grilling stopped. The two carried on like old buddies. We dropped him off. He wished us blessings along our path.

In forty-five minutes, my friend had befriended—and berated—people from vastly different social strata in her society. 

Then, we arrived at Nothing: It was a vast, still, multi-layered and colored expanse of mountains in all directions. Once my eyes tuned to it, I could also make out the specks of shepherd and sheep along a few distant hills. Nearby, a donkey and human ambled together side by side. By the looks of it, they were having a heartfelt conversation. 

The ancient rhythms, the ones all humans evolved to and are still wired to, took over. Fatima had been right. This was the transcendent Big Waloo. And yes, I’d needed a break from the congestion of the bowl-shaped but captivating city of Fez.

We lolled the rest of the day at Fatima’s mineral spring, absorbing so much well-being that we were too tired for anything other than sipping fresh orange juice at the village café. Donkeys loaded with a refrigerator, bricks, and melons sauntered by. Fatima was about to grill the donkey driver when she decided to save her energy for the drive back to Fez. 

I realized then that Fatima’s idea of The Big Waloo was more than mountain vistas. She was the Taoist paradox: Something is Nothing; Nothing is Something.