June 5 2021 - Truffles from Chocopologie

 

Perigord Truffles have a distinctive smell - somewhere in the skunk, cannabis, mushroom, funky, and musky aroma range for me.  The formal entry says Perigord truffles "bear a pungent, musky aroma that is likened to a combination of garlic, forest floor, nuts, and cocoa. The truffle's flesh contains a robust, subtly sweet, savoury, and earthy flavour with notes of pepper, mushrooms, mint, and hazelnut." Now we know why hazelnut is in the mix.  That's how I got to thinking about chocolate truffles - they came up frequently yesterday on searches for Perigord Truffles.   There is a chocolate truffle that incorporates a French Perigord truffle.  La Madeline au Truffle, created by Danish chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt is acknowledged as the world’s most expensive chocolate truffle at $250 per piece.  It is $2700 a pound.  What a gorgeous website - called chocopologie.com.  "Fritz immigrated to the US in 1996, produces this lavish chocolate in Norwalk, Connecticut under the brand name Knipschildt Chocolatier. This chocolate is made of 70% Valrhona dark chocolate, heavy cream, sugar, truffle oil and vanilla as the base for this rich mouthful. A rare French Perigord truffle is then surrounded by this rich ganache, and then rolled in dark chocolate and fine cocoa powder. The result is absolutely divine and sinful." The chef makes this recommendation on how to eat it:  "I would suggest you serve it on a silver platter, cut it with the best knife you have in the house and eat it with a wonderful bottle of red wine. "The flavors are just so amazing, the ingredients so special that it deserves to have a ceremony made of it." This doesn't sound divine to me - how do you possibly eat a truffle within chocolate.  You will need an extremely sharp knife and I expect you will have to cut it into slivers.  And then won't everything separate.  I don't relish putting more than a sliver of funky, mushroom, garlic, forest floor in my mouth.   But you can order it online from chocopologie if you are more adventurous. Doesn't this bark look flaky and crispy?  The top looks like caramel bark and the bottom chocolate layers.

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June 4 2021 - Trufficulture

 

Trufficulture: What does this word signify?   Growers in Ontario will be producing Burgundy truffles, a rare variety that matures in the fall, compared to other truffles that mature in the winter or in the summer.  There are some native truffles in Ontario, and when found in the wild, are very valuable.   Adam Koziol is the owner of EarthGen, a propagation nursery company located in Dunnville/Wainfleet. It uses unique methods to speed the development of trees. They have been able to inoculate hazelnut and oak tree roots with Burgundy truffle spore from Spain.  This is the nursery that supplied the native trees for our Garden Club Earth Day sale.  Truffles grow in several places in Europe, but mainly France, Italy and Spain. France and Italy closely guard their truffle spores and won’t allow their export. Spain, however has allowed some export. It is expected that Niagara is a viable region for truffle production. It can take 6 to 10 years until both the hazelnut trees and the truffles mature.  Hazelnut trees can earn up to $3,000 per acre.  And then there are the truffles.  There are a few years to go yet, as the original coverage of the topic was in 2018. But on the West Coast, truffles have been growing longer.  There, Grant and Betty Duckett have been growing truffles since the 2000s and even have Lagotto Romagnolo dogs for truffle hunting.  They are focused on growing black Periogord truffles.  While their website is a bit out of date, they do say that they have passed the operation on to their family.  Let's hope this endeavour continues. Here in Niagara, Earthgen's website - says they are scheduling tours for interested hazelnut and truffle growers.   Could you have guessed there would be hazelnuts and truffles in Niagara? This picture was taken on a ride on the Strasburg Railway almost 10 years ago - what a field of flowers!

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The Three Chocolatiers

 

Can every story be told in the form of eating and food? Dumas' famous Three Musketeers would be The Three Chocolatiers. What evil plot would they seek to destroy in order to protect King and Country? Perhaps they are visiting the Cote D'Ivoire - the Ivory Coast the largest supplier of cocoa - 30 percent of the world's total cocoa - with 1.5 million tonnes.  The evil plot is to destroy the cocoa crop in order for the general of the military to take over the government with martial law, and empty its treasury.  The Three Chocolatiers must preserve democracy in this important chocolate country. Or they could have discovered a plot by chocolate giants Hershey and Ferrero who have heavily invested in facilities for cocoa production in Mexico, but somehow the crops are falling to disease.  Could Hershey and Ferrero be behind the failures, wanting production in other cheaper countries they produce to dominate? The Three Chocolatiers must find out and save the Mexican farmers from ruin. Is it Peru? They grow cocoa and cocaine.  Are the cocaine drug lords forcing cocoa farmers out of business, as they take over the land to grow more coca.  They seek to create both world shortages of cocoa and gain more profit from cocaine, debilitating populations with addiction.  The Three Chocolatiers must save Peruvian farmers, chocolate lovers, and people from falling into addiction around the world. And finally, could this be a WWII story? The American troops brought endless chocolate bars and Coca-cola to the British population living on rations when they came for the D-Day landings on the Normandy beaches.  What if the chocolate bars were poisoned and the British and Americans would fall ill to the chocolate plague? Then Germany would win the war.  The Three Chocolatiers have a challenge in this plot - how to confiscate all that chocolate to keep it from killing the population.  I found some pictures of the famous dessert chef Gaston Lenotre's Paris patisserie during our visit in 2003.  Chocolate truffles - would they be worth dying for?  Ask the Three Chocolatiers.

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