French truffle farmers aim to stop Chinese fungi
Scientists use their sense of smell to help distinguish between highly-prized black truffles and cheap Chinese imports
When is a black truffle not a rare French fungus worth 1,000 euros (HK$10,500) a kilogram? When it fails the smell test.
In their battle to see off competition from pale and cheap Chinese imitations, French ‘trufficulteurs’ (truffle cultivators, as they like to be known), have enlisted the help of scientists.
And as the truffle season gets into full swing, French sellers are seeking to identify the smells that make the highly-prized tuber melanosporum or black truffle – found in south-west France and known as the “black diamond”– distinct from its distant and considerably cheaper cousin, the tuber indicum from Sichuan and the Himalayan foothills.
A team of experts from the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) at Avignon is attempting to establish the “olfactory qualities” of the European truffle.
“From the key components of the smell, we should also be able to determine the soil from where the truffle comes,” Christian Ginies, head of the INRA research team told reporters.
“In any case we will be able to tell the difference between a truffle from Perigord and a truffle from China. Knowing the characteristics of a product better can help with better communication about truffles, but also help to deal with fraud.”
Four years ago, French scientists established the genome sequence of the black Perigord truffle, a subterraneous fungus that grows close to oak and hazelnut trees and is sought for its rich, musty smell and flavour.