Book review: Truffles, by Ken Hom and Pierre-Jean Pébeyre

By Ken Hom and Pierre-Jean Pébeyre

"What is a truffle?" Pierre-Jean Pébeyre asks in the first chapter of this book, which he wrote in collaboration with celebrity chef and cookbook author Ken Hom.

Pébeyre is not talking about the chocolate truffle, but of the "black diamonds" that have been prized by chefs and connoisseurs through the ages. If anyone can answer this question, it's Pébeyre. His family has been in the truffle business for five generations. But, he admits, it's difficult: "The question 'what is a truffle?' has never been answered in a completely satisfactory way. The truffle is a bizarre product in every way. Here is an organism that some have hesitated to classify as a fungus, and others as belonging to the plant kingdom. According to dictionaries and treatises, it is a 'very delicious and fragrant plant', 'a type of unformed fungus', 'a sort of stemless and rootless fungus' or simply a 'distinctive tuber', which is the description that best suits it."

Furthermore, because "the truffle is born, lives and dies" it has been classified as belonging to the category of "animalised plants".

Pébeyre points out qualities that make the truffle unique: "This curious animalised vegetable mineral grows entirely underground, with no light and little oxygen. In terms of growing season, it is also unlike everything else because it only grows at the height of winter and its quality declines at a time when other plants are preparing to bloom."