Volume 32, No.8
THE
NEWSPAPER
OF
THE
CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA SINCE 1 9 7 9
BY: JARED VALBURG, AOS Culinary Brillat-Savarin called them the diamonds of the kitchen. Truffles have always been a delicacy by merit of their unique flavor and a treasure by merit of their rarity. This reputation has brought the price of this humble fungus to $3,600 a pound. In fact, the back-alley trade of truffles has spawned a massive criminal underworld in France. “The reality is, behind the popularity of the truffle lies a dangerous world,” said French Chef Clement Bruno during a recent interview with CBS News. Bruno has experienced first-hand the effects of the illicit truffle trade. “They stole 200 kilos of truffles,” he elaborates. “They didn’t steal my money! They stole my truffles!” 0Truffles are part of a large group of fungus that has long eluded cultivation. Truffles require decaying oak tree roots, limestone-rich soil, and hot dry weather – all of which will only create the possibility of a truffle. If a truffle does choose to appear somewhere in the vast wilderness of an environment, they must be sought out by specially trained dogs, which themselves are becoming a hot commodity among truffle thieves. 0“What did you do when they took your dogs?” asked Lesley Stahl of CBS News to Michel Tournayre, a third generation truffle farmer. 0“I looked for them all over Europe. I found a world I didn’t know about. It’s a world that’s rotten to the core.” Tournayre never found his hunters. Dogs like the ones stolen from Tournayre require serious investment for an uncertain payoff. Training begins as soon as the dog is able to smell and continues throughout the dog’s lifespan. Mature
truffles are stuffed into a sock and thrown for the puppy to fetch at an early age, so as to familiarize the dog with the scent. As training progresses, the sock is hidden in more and more obscure locations until it is eventually buried, emulating the difficulty of locating a small, low fungus buried in the base of a tree. In the United States, there are only two known trainers of truffle-seeking dogs, one in Oregon and one in New Jersey. 0This training keeps dogs from locating the immature, less pungent fungus. Traditionally, pigs were used to locate truffles by merit of their strong sense of smell. The pigs were eventually replaced with dogs trained to locate truffles and await a treat as payment. Truffle dogs are even denied food for a day in order to make them more eager to locate the truffles and receive their treat. 0Chinese truffles, a variety distinct from prize white and black truffles, were used almost exclusively for feeding hogs. It was only recently that the sale of truffles to France for human consumption caught on. However, the taste and texture of these imported truffles has dismayed the truffle word at the delight of truffle smugglers – who use the cheaper, similarlooking fungus to cut their supply of actual quality truffles. Bruno comments: “It’s the truffle itself. It’s like eating a piece of wood.” Chinese truffles are not sought out with pigs or dogs. Instead, the ground where truffles are suspected to be is raked up, capturing ripe and unripe bulbs alike. The result is a product with no distinct truffle odor, no strong truffle flavor, and a drastically reduced price – in some cases, as low as $20 a pound. When mixed with the genuine French product, this
fungal fodder can be snuck into disreputable establishments at an insanely inflated price. The importation of Chinese truffles and its mixture with the distinct French product raises concerns not only of the integrity of the dish being prepared, but for the practice of truffle agriculture as a whole. The worst-case scenario is that spores from the Chinese plants become intermingled with spores from French plants, which The infamous black truffle. are then redistributed into Photo By: tartufiunlimited.com the oak forests of France. There, the Chinese truffles could take advantage of the limestone soil and dry climate to choke out the French variety, ending the truffle as we know it today and eliminating kitchen diamonds so cherished by Brillat-Savarin. Tournayre once again comments, “they are putting into danger the crown jewel of French gastronomy. If one day by accident our plantation starts producing Chinese truffles, we are dead.” Let’s hope that’s not the case... Sources:http://www.cbsnews.com, http://www.natruffling.org/
BY: ANNA FROST, AOS Baking and Pastry Food defines us. How each person relates to food is unique to his or her identity. Personal preference is formed by the environment and continues to change as we experience new things, explore different places and gain knowledge. In America, one of the heaviest influence on our environments is the media. Everyday we face new foods to promote weight loss or prevent disease; more frequently, these opinions shift and change, often leaving many people in our nation quite confused about how they should feel about food. The problem stemming from this health-obsessed culture are the labels of “good” and “bad” associated with certain foods, the guilt experienced in tandem when consuming a decadent dessert and the distorted relationships people begin to have with food. Viewing food in a negative light is unnatural, if not absolutelyridiculous. Food simplybrings us pleasure.While practicing moderation is key to living well, deprivation of the food people love makes life a little less satisfying. Yet, Americans are caught up in a love-hate relationship with food. Usher should write a song about us. While discussing this very issue in In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan notes a study done by Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Rozin showed a group of Americans the words “chocolate cake.” Delicious, scrumptious and luscious are just three of the many words that describe the pleasing nature of the flavor of food, especially chocolate cake. The most frequent answer Rozin received was “guilt.” Unless you chow down on a Six Layer Chocolate Cake a la Paula Deen, this seems like a slight overreaction. Guilt is a strong word in itself. In our world of eating disorders and depression, why are we allowing food to become a source of anxiety? Inspired
by Professor Rozin and in the spirit of fulfilling curiosity, I conducted a survey of students and staff at The Culinary Institute of America to discover our students’ answers. 0“Triple chocolate cake” was greeted with a multitude of words; surprisingly the top adjective was the 19% who responded with “delicious.” “Rich” followed with 16%, then “decadent” and “sweet” followed suit. Only a handful of those polled replied with words with a negative connotation such as the 6% who said it was “too much”; or the 4% who described this dessert as “heavy.” When those students were asked which food fit the word “indulgent”, 35% said chocolate and another 13% specified chocolate cake. It would seem that many have a grasp on how to put foods in their proper place by acknowledging their tasteful merits with the knowledge that such foods are meant for treats, not everyday occurrences. While the words “fat”, “calories”, “sin”, “pimples” and “diabetes” did appear as a total of 8% of the responses, they weren’t the majority rule. Overall, people’s reactions toward triple chocolate cake were fairly positive, quite different from Rozin’s guiltridden results. Of course, consideration should be given towards the fact that the survey was conducted in a bubble of people who love and are well educated about, food. Although this does not necessarily make us healthier or even more health-conscious than others, we do understand food more than the average tourist who peers through our production kitchen windows. Our admiration and passion for all things edible allows us to cast off the blanket of food-related fear the media has tucked most of America into bed with over the past few decades. 0Professor Rozin also surveyed groups of French people in the same study. When confronted with the infamous “chocolate cake” question, he found they most often
responded with “celebration.” His conclusion noted that their positive view on indulgence may be the key to their overall healthier relationship with foods. Even the circus of health advice around us has come to the conclusion that once we purposefully make something into a diet taboo, we then crave it exponentially and will binge later when we finally relent (which anyone who has dieted knows eventually happens). Turning the tables slightly, in the survey conducted on the CIA’s campus, I included the word “celebration” and asked people to write down the first food or beverage that came to mind. Interestingly enough, while no one related “triple chocolate cake” to celebration earlier in the survey, 58% of those polled said that the word “celebration” reminded them of cake. The fact is that cake is imbedded in our minds as a celebratory food, especially in America. Every birthday, office retirement, graduation or Father’s Day provokes the excuse to enjoy cake. Yet, one of the biggest anxieties about social gatherings people harbor are based around the calories to be consumed, the big question: to eat, or not to eat cake. If you were forced to read Hamlet in high school, you know such inner-personal struggles are not healthy for the soul. Labeling cake as “party”, “delicious”, “diabetes” and “sin” all at once is contradictory, which generally leads to more confusion for all involved. If food is our identifier, then we should claim it proudly, lest we be identified as nervous and befuddled about such a simple thing. Over-thinking whether we should treat ourselves or stick to a salad wastes precious agonizing time better spent on timelines or wines reading. As for Professor Rozin and his chocolate cake: Enjoy a slice once in awhile, it’s good for you.
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