NPR story on Oregon Truffle Festival

January 2011 issue of NPR's Jefferson Monthly

Truffle Madness

Oregon’s improving reputation as a culinary cornucopia is being helped by an elusive delicacy that grows on public land and is yours for the picking, if you know how.

By Janet Eastman

THERE are three types of fanatics who attend the Oregon Truffle Festival: farmers, foodies and dog owners. All are intent on capitalizing on the state’s underground version of mushrooms, those mysterious white, black and brown delicacies that grow naturally in shady woods, and it is hoped, underneath young trees impregnated with truffle spores. Some wild truffles are no larger than a marble. Many are flavorless, plucked from the nourishing soil before they are ripe, then passed on to people who further cement Oregon’s bad rap for bland truffles.

A few shavings of truffles from France’s Périgord or Italy’s Piedmont regions can elevate the flavor and price of a dish. These truffles have strong, complex flavors and can fetch around $100 an ounce in a specialty market. Because of this, they are hunted by families that have developed their knowledge and keen spotting skills over generations. Most Oregon truffles, however, are undiscovered; left to rot where they grow wild. A few are found by hobbyists intent on quietly eating them in that night’s risotto. Ones unearthed by professional harvesters are sold to brokers and whisked off to chefs and consumers, who may pay a price–about $15 an ounce–that reflects the state’s lower cachet.

Truffles’ contribution to cuisine can range from distinctive to nuanced to nil. When mature, wild Oregon white truffles have a nutty, earthy taste. The Oregon brown truffle gives off a garlicky odor and the rare Oregon black truffle can release a mixed aroma of pineapple, port, chocolate and dirt. When immature, truffles have the feel and flavor of a rock.

Despite the Oregon truffles’ junior standing in gourmet circles and their unpredictability, hundreds of people will gather January 28–30 in Eugene to attend the 6th Annual Oregon Truffle Festival, three days of seminars, farm tours, feasting and dog (not pig) training. These fans of fungi want to improve Oregon’s truffle reputation and output. They hope to make the state a top producer, to be as well known for supplying quality truffles as matsutake mushrooms, blue cheese and Pinot Noir.

The biggest fanatics of all are the event’s ultra-passionate organizers, Leslie Scott and Charles LeFevre. The festival’s mission is to educate people about truffles. Part of that is teaching people how to spot ripe wild ones. Another part is to encourage people to plant seedlings that could, in time, cultivate truffles. Through LeFevre’s company, New World Truffieres, the respected mycologist and researcher sells oak and hazelnut seedlings inoculated with black and white truffle spores. His clients are farmers, winery owners and would-be truffliers who hope that an acre of babied trees could produce 20 to 50 pounds of Oregon’s “diamonds of the kitchen.” No Oregon truffle cultivator has hit pay dirt. Yet.

LeFevre and others see truffles as another example of sustainable, high-end farming. “Truffles are emblems of good food and wine in Oregon,” says LeFevre, talking with enthusiasm about what has become his life’s work. “When ripe, they can change your life.”

State secrets

Oregon is rich with undeveloped land, fertile soil, undisturbed trees, reliable rain, hungry squirrels, scent-imprintable dogs and attentive harvesters—all necessary ingredients for truffles. Different species of wild truffles grow from the coast to the Cascades, from northern California to British Columbia. “We now have truffles growing in Oregon’s state capital,” says the emcee at the last festival’s grand dinner, in which 250 people paid $175 to feast on six courses–from a truffle salad to a dessert of those chocolate pretenders.

It’s expensive to consume and learn about culinary truffles. Festival-goers this year will pay up to $1,000 for a weekend-themed package aimed at cultivators, epicureans and those who want to train their dog to find those freebies in the forest. Sunday is the public day in which $15 gets you in the door of the Valley River Inn’s ballroom to taste truffle-related goods. Jack Czarnecki and his son Chris, both chefs at the Joel Palmer House in Dayton, will be handing out samples of their $6-an-ounce truffle oil. Artisan cheese, bread and winemakers will be there, too, touting their products as perfect pairings to one of the world’s most expensive ingredients.

Truffles are prized for their distinctive flavor and their elusiveness. Yet, they grow freely on public land and are yours for the picking. There are no laws against taking truffles from public land for personal use, but commercial harvesters need a special-use permit. No one can remove even a pea-size morsel from a national park.

Experts don’t know of a truffle that is harmful to humans, but poisonous Amanita and Cortinarius mushrooms start as “eggs” below ground and could be mistaken for truffles. The bigger danger is competition. Those who hunt for wild truffles usually do so in the wet, cruel mornings. Some, fearful that their gourmet edibles will be discovered first by man or beast, resort to survivalist’s tactics.

John Michael Getz is a dignified man who has learned a lot over 25 years of foraging Oregon’s public lands. In September and October, the Florence resident hunts for matsutakes. In January and May, it’s truffles. Dressed in common camo, toting a nondescript bag and walking as if on a stroll, Getz has survived the sometimes cutthroat world of commercial harvesting by being stealth. Once, another hunter stumbled upon Getz near a nest of truffles. To throw the interloper off course, Getz pulled down his pants and shouted, “Can I have some privacy, please?” The competitor ran away through the bushes.

Getz doesn’t attend the seminars at the Oregon Truffle Festival, but he’s invited each year to help supply the truffles needed to feed hundreds of people multiple courses of truffles at the elaborate Friday and Saturday night feasts. Getz knows that there is a ticking clock on truffles: Ripe ones must be eaten within days of being picked. Finding ripe ones take a human with a special scent ability. Or a dog.

Call in the dogs

On a rainy afternoon last January, a few dozen people on the festival’s daylong Truffliere Tour have arrived at Willamette Valley Vineyards in Turner. They walk past endless rows of grapevines to a piece of land too moist to grow Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, but perfect for truffle-bearing Douglas fir trees. Here, where a grove has formed a thick canopy that keeps the sun from ever drying out the pine duff floor, a truffle dog is about to sniff his way to a goldmine of ripe Oregon truffles.

But first, look closely to see a detectable circle around each tree–a “fairy ring,” it’s called. It is in these mushy mounds that the newly indoctrinated truffle hunters hope to find coveted treasures on their own. The searchers use four-tine garden rakes to scratch away a few inches of the stuff that has fallen from the trees, been blown into the grove or left behind by animals. Buried beneath all of that are truffles, the fruits born from the intertwining fungi that nourish the trees.

“Is this a truffle?” a woman in soil-caked jeans and boots asks dog trainer Jim Sanford. He squints at what looks like a hard, creamy-colored pea, and nods yes. She lets out a “booyah” to her husband, who then sticks his rake into the ground and fishes out a worm. What Sanford doesn’t tell her is that her truffle is worthless. It’s a spring truffle, set to be ripe in May but now, ripped from its connection to the soil, it will be forever flavorless.

This kind of unnecessary waste is a reason people want Sanford around. He trains dogs to follow the intoxicating scent of ripe truffles and ignore the scentless immature ones. Sanford handled elephants before he was tapped to work with a 6-year-old Lagotto Romagnolo named Tom four years ago at Blackberry Farm in Tennessee, where truffles are successfully cultivated. At festival classes, Sanford teaches owners to reward their dog for every found truffle. Because of his Italian heritage, Tom the

Truffle Dog receives his praise in Italian: Molto bene (“very good”), Sanford says frequently.

It is this mindful attention that assures festival organizer LeFevre that truffle hunting will always be an intimate endeavor. “Monsanto is not going to invent a machine to do this,” LeFevre says. For all his work and his wisdom, however, Dr. LeFevre is not the star of this festival.

Tom the Truffle Dog is. Wherever Tom goes, crowds gather. They take photos of Tom and ask Sanford about Tom in front of Tom as if the dog were an aloof movie star. Tom is so popular that a side industry has developed around him: puppies. Throughout the festival, people asked Sanford if they can be “put on the list,” a growing wait list to buy one of Tom’s offspring for $3,000. “The dogs sell themselves,” says Sanford.

A lot of huff and puff and hype follows Tom, but when he gets to work, he’s impressive. Sanford looks at the newbie truffle hunters scattered among the trees, then reaches down to unleashed Tom. He sends the dog off with this command: “Let’s see what you find after this place has been picked over by people with eyes.”

When everyone stands still, the world under these trees is quiet enough to hear Tom sniffing, in and out like a well-calibrated piston, as he moves from one piece of soft ground to another. Sniff. Stop. Dig. Bingo! In seconds he uncovers a wild truffle. Sanford jumps in to retrieve it and says, “Molto bene, Tom.” Then it’s sniff. Stop. Dig. Bingo! The dog does it again. In a few minutes, Sanford’s cupped hands are full of ripe white truffles. He pulls off his baseball cap. Fifteen minutes later, the cap is full. “If you have a dog, it’s a no brainer,” says Sanford.

There are many advantages to dogs over the traditional truffle-hunting female pig. First, dogs like Tom don’t want to eat the truffles, whereas female pigs, drawn to the scent that mirrors a male pig sex hormone, really, really want to devour them. “And who wants to wrestle with a 300-pound animal in heat?” jokes Sanford.

Too many accidental maulings have forced the government of Italy to outlaw the use of pigs in truffle hunting, says Alessandro Mondello, an agronomist with Mondo Tartufo Association, based in the culinary-rich Emilia-Romagna region. He attended the festival in 2010 as a guest but returns this year to teach truffle sensorial analysis; that is, how to detect complex flavor notes. Mondello adds another fact to the dog’s advantages: Walking a dog down a village street doesn’t alert everyone that you’re going to your secret truffle patch. Walking a pig does.

After seeing Tom’s haul, festival-goers who had attended the seminar on the market value of Oregon white truffles were transformed on the spot into human cash registers. Let’s see: At $250 a pound??…Cha Ching! “Tom has a good work ethic,” says Sanford. “He’s focused even with this hubbub.” Tom flashes by, nose to the ground. Tom’s posse wanders by a man in a leather jacket with a big smile on his face. “I beat you to these,” says Greg Frownfelter, holding his hand out to show off a few truffles. Tom wanders right past Frownfelter as a shot of rain weasels through the overhead branches and plonks on Frownfelter’s head.

The people trailing Tom keep the praise going. “It’s like an Easter egg hunt,” gushes one woman. Says a man to a stranger: “Did you see how well Tom did? He needs a backpack.” Then suddenly, whether the place was picked clean or the crowd got boring or something else happened, Tom lost his concentration and wandered off a few yards to pee. “He’s ready to leave,” says Sanford. “He wants his kibble.”

Foodie heaven

People do find truffles on their own. Carole Stevens, the marketing director for Folin Cellars in Gold Hill, is in the same truffle patch but far away from the famous dog. Stevens scans for clues in the pine needles, looks for where squirrels have been, then gets close to the ground–is she sniffing?–and scratches the litter layer with her fingers until she finds what smells to be a ripe white. It is.

Stevens loves the way truffles taste on Brie, beef and even ice cream. She and other festival-goers have just been treated to a gourmet lunch at the Willamette Valley Vineyard’s tasting room. The meal started with a medley of truffle-infused Brie, Gouda and triple cream cheese and an endive salad with truffle oil dressing. The winery’s founder Jim Bernau welcomed everyone with glasses of his 2008 Dry Riesling, the first of three of his wines poured at lunch. The second course was white truffle-infused Beef Stroganoff served with a 2007 Pinot Noir. Dessert was a black-truffle Napoleon with a black truffle oil and cocoa syrup. “Hershey’s Syrup for rich people,” jokes guest chef Chris Czarnecki, who paired it with a 2007 Quinta Reserva Port.

Such is the life of gourmands attending the Oregon Truffle Festival. If they’re not watching a cooking demonstration or shopping for culinary treats, they’re eating. Oregon’s truffles are generally consumed fresh, raw, slightly cooked or immersed in olive oil, butter or other fats. They can be refrigerated in a paper bag for a few days or frozen for months in a glass jar. January’s festival, however, eats through a lot of the fresh inventory. This year’s Friday night dinner will spotlight the philosophy of eating pick of the season, locally produced food. The menu is a secret, created by long-time slow food advocate, Stephanie Pearl Kimmel of Marché restaurant in Eugene. Truffles will be part of every course.

Last year, festival foodies on Friday night gobbled down truffles in cauliflower and leek fondue; duck consommé with lobster ravioli; Dungeness crab and spot prawn risotto; seared scallops in angel hair pasta; chicken liver bonbon with hazelnuts; chicken breast and wild mushrooms; and pheasant. The evening ended, mercifully, with truffle-free caramel pot de crème. Rocky Maselli, then the chef of Marché before opening Osteria Sfizio, also in Eugene, collaborated with French chef Jacques Ratier on the feast that spotlighted Oregon and French truffles.

On Saturday, those attending last year’s sold-out Grand Truffle Dinner were trufflized again. The pungent scent perfumed the Valley River Inn ballroom as guests were greeted by the masters of ceremonies, restaurateur Ron Paul (not the Republican Congressman but the one who spearheaded the James Beard Public Market in Portland). Paul asked that the pickers and dog trainers who contributed to the feast stand to be acknowledged: “We don’t take truffles for granted,” Paul says. “We also hold dear sustainability issues. Please stand up, with your dirty hands, those who provided truffles for tonight’s dinner.” Then the chefs were introduced.

That night, Naomi Pomeroy of Beast offered crème fraiche tarts with triple cream, shaved white truffles and a salad with black truffle vinaigrette. Pascal Sauton of Carafe presented Pacific lingcod effeuilee with foie gras and black truffle broth. Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon conjured an exquisite blanquette of Oregon rabbit with white truffles. Philippe Boulot of the Heathman Restaurant & Bar received the loudest applause for his duck leg confit and black truffle pommes sarladaises.

At the end of the festival, when most people were hazy on dish specifics, Folin Cellars’ Stevens was clear on what she liked and didn’t like. She even remembered her first truffle, eaten a year before the festival with her boss, winemaker Rob Folin, at Portland’s Fenouil restaurant. “I ordered a wild mushroom risotto with Oregon truffles. We were drinking our Estate Tempranillo and it was the perfect match. An absolute ahhh! moment,” she recalls.

Stevens says Folin started to research when and where to find wild truffles and the two started hunting them. They have had their best luck in the Northern Willamette Valley, poking around overgrown Christmas tree groves. She uses truffles to infuse oil, make truffle butter and in home-cooked dishes. Folin also looked into starting a truffle orchard on his family’s land, near the vineyards. But Stevens is not convinced that cultivated truffles are a feasible option. Besides, she adds, “I like the wild hunt.”

Optimistic Farmers

Greg Frownfelter could be called a patient dreamer. He’s a middle-aged IT guy who has taken up farming. On his property in Talent, Oregon he has planted 800 hazelnut trees and 200 oaks–priced today at around $20 each–that he hopes will one day produce truffles. He’s willing to wait. Five years into the venture, his inoculated trees have not produce a single truffle, but he was told to not even look until year six. Or seven. Or… “I’m crossing my fingers,” says Frownfelter, “and I’m not giving up my day job.”

The science of cultivating truffles is sketchy. Truffles, like other edible fungi, require the right tree roots, climate and animals to eat them to spread the spores. Forager Getz uses a calendar to record rainfall, dry nights and temperatures below 42 degrees. Then he calculates when it might be wild truffle time. Still, it’s a shot in the dark if a wild truffle will grow. Their numbers have nosedived in recent decades because of environmental changes. Now, take nature’s exacting demands and try to duplicate that on a farm. Italian scientists have sequenced the black truffle’s full genome and still mycologists and trufficulteurs shrug their shoulders when answering the question, “When will my farm start producing truffles?”

Frownfelter has attended every Oregon Truffle Festival since it began in 2006. One of the lures of the festival is a daylong Growers’ Forum for would-be producers. This year, scientists, researchers and marketers will explain to a cluster of Americans looking for the next moneymaking opportunity how truffles are being cultivated. France, Italy, Spain and Tennessee have had success; so far, Oregon has not.

Last year, Linh Ta, an accountant from Seattle, read a feasibility study on the profitability of domestic truffles and attended the seminars, notepad handy, eyes glued to PowerPoint slides. Others filling the conference room were captivated by the notion of striking it rich on the earth’s treasures. Truffle broker Vincent Jeanseaume of Sabatino Tartufi said the market for desirable truffles was lucrative and growing. His company sold 30% more truffles to specialty stores and upscale restaurants in 2009 than 2008, and at higher prices. His prediction that the consumer market was getting bigger was supported by his statement that he was contacted by Costco.com to sell fresh truffles. He made it sound easy to cash in. “If you have one pound, you UPS it to me and I receive it the next day and you get paid,” says the truffle buyer.

But during his presentation on Establishing Your Truffle Orchard, Spanish truffle researcher Dr. Carlos Colinas spoke realistically. “You cannot have the idea that you want to cultivate truffles then go to Wal-Mart and get going,” he explains. A year or more is needed to decide on trees and find a source, then years to grow the trees that hopefully become good truffle hosts. Colinas estimates that only 20-30% of trees in a good plantation produce truffles.

Frownfelter has brought in trucks full of lime to increase the ph content of his soil. He has installed irrigation and bought a mower to keep young plants from being strangled by weeds. Recently, he acquired a lab puppy named Pele. At last year’s festival, Frownfelter saw the ease in which Tom the Truffle Dog found ripe wild truffles. Frownfelter recognizes that his farm could use some help. He’ll be attending the festival this year, networking with other growers and thinking of the day when a ripe truffle will change his life.

For more information: Oregon Truffle Festival, January 28-30, centered in and around the Valley River Inn, 1000 Valley River Way, Eugene, Oregon, (503) 296-5929, www.oregontrufflefestival.com

Janet Eastman attended the Oregon Truffle Festival in January 2010. She never found a wild truffle, but squealed when she unearthed a matsutake mushroom in the Oregon Dunes in October. She sautéed and ate it, and had vivid dreams that night. Her writing can be seen at www.janeteastman.com