Could Truffles be the Investment of the Future?

Mark Sampson - Thu 31 Jan, 2008

This black gold commands silly prices from gourmets. You can tell theyre absurdly expensive because there are no price tags in evidence. At anything from 200 - 600 per kilo according to the customary laws of supply and demand, buying a truffle is more like buying a watch than half a kilo of button mushrooms. It means stopping to sniff the merchandise and discuss its properties with the trader.

It was the postman who alerted me. 

We wound down our respective car windows and he handed over our Saturday morning post. I was just on my way to Martel, I explained. 

“You’ll be going to the truffle market then?” 

Having never even tasted a truffle, I confessed that I knew nothing about it. 

“It’s the season now. Between December and February,” the postman explained. “You know it’s not the taste that’s important, it’s the fragrance. That’s the thing with truffles.” 

I’ve mentioned before that Martel is our nearest village/town. Founded in the 11th century, it was once the “capital” of the old Viscomté de Turennes, a local principality that enjoyed for many centuries an influence disproportionate to its size. It prospered on the back of its artisans, merchants and bankers until the viscounty was sold off in 1738 and Martel lost many of its privileges. 

It was the flourishing 19th century truffle trade, however, that resurrected the place. During the golden age of les trouffes, France was producing something like 2,000 tonnes per year. But the killing fields of the Great War ravaged production and, by the Second World War, that figure had withered to a mere 40 tonnes. Like everything these days, you can import substitutes from China. They look right, but I’m told they’re a pale imitation. 

There wasn’t a space to be had in the car park opposite La Poste. This is a phenomenon normally experienced only during July and August when the tourists clog up Martel’s narrow medieval streets. I found most of the visitors either inside or hanging around the entrance to the 13th century Halle de Commerce. 

The stallholders’ panniers were already half-empty. Apparently, you have to get there early for the “bargains”. Nevertheless, the hall was still buzzing with noise and activity. Someone with a microphone was pushing tickets for the raffle. Win, win, win… a solitary truffle. It didn’t sound or look a very exciting prospect: a gnarled ball of fungus resembling a calcified Ferrero Rocher chocolate. 

However, this “black gold” commands silly prices from gourmets. You can tell they’re absurdly expensive because there are no price tags in evidence. At anything from €200 - €600 per kilo according to the customary laws of supply and demand, buying a truffle is more like buying a watch than half a kilo of button mushrooms. It means stopping to sniff the merchandise and discuss its properties with the trader. 

Remembering our postman’s words, I stopped at one of the trestle tables and asked the leather-skinned countryman if I could smell one of the few spherical growths left in his basket. “Of course, but…” and he made a gesture to suggest that the fragrance would be lost somewhat in this hall full of odorous human bodies. 

He was right. I was expecting a concentrated whiff of something akin to the dank, musky smell you catch sometimes in the oak woods around here whenever the mushrooms are in spore. There was the faintest hint of nut and butter, but nothing really to tempt me to part with something like ten euros. 

Did he, I asked, go hunting his truffles with a pig or a dog? “Oh, a dog. There aren’t many who use pigs these days.” 

So dogs were better? “Not really, just more practical – for transporting. You can train a dog to find a truffle and he’ll do it to please you. But a pig actually loves them. You have to be very alert and quick with a pig or you find yourself having to grab it out of its mouth.” He laughed and held up a soil-engrained hand to show that he still had the requisite number of fingers. 

Knowing how our dog loves to root in the mossy banks of woods, I wondered about going into production. The terrain here is the requisite limestone, so I stopped off at the stall of a nearby truffle-nursery for some information. 

It costs €10 per oak sapling, infected with the spores of the indigenous Perigordian truffle, tuber mélanosporum, and reared under controlled conditions. It then takes ten years or more after planting before possible production – and there is no guarantee of success, since there are so many imponderables in the equation. 

Given my track record with houseplants, and even at today’s market price, I think gold still tempts me more as an investment.