From The Oregon Journal, Oct. 15, 1980

Truffles...they're not trifles

By BARBARA DURBIN, Journal Food Editor
There could be a whole new business hiding underfoot, maybe even in
your own backyard.
You see, there's a very expensive fungus among us - truffles. No, not
those luscious little chocolate candies rolled in cocoa. Those are
confectionary imitations of the real thing.
Truffles are a sort of cousin to the mushroom that grows underground
and is highly prized for cooking purposes, particularly in europe. And
up to recently, most of those edible varieties in great demand, such
as France's black perigord truffle, were thought to grow mainly in
europe, where pigs and dogs are trained to sniff them out for truffle
farmers.
Now some species of truffles that may be palatable are being
identified here in Oregon. Dr. james Trappe, a mycologist and
researcher at the USDA Forestry Sciences Laboratory at Oregon State
University, says that more than 500 species of truffles have been
found in the state. Of course, he adds, that depends on your
definition of "truffle." That number includes all below-the-ground
fruiting bodies of fungi. Of these, only 100 are "true" truffles.
THOUGH NOT all of the 100 would be palatable, one species has been
found that is similar to the much in demand white truffle grown mainly
in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. Trappe sent a sample of the
Oregon variety to food expert James Beard for culinary evaluation. He
proinounced them "exquisite," Trappe said.
Other sepcies from the state are not exactly what you'd want on the
dinner table. "One has an odor reminiscent of sewer gas;" Trappe said,
"some like used motor oil."
That truffles could be found here in Oregon may seem like good enough
news to gourmands. But the other revelation is that truffle
cultivation could be around the corner.
Tom Michaels, a graduate student working with Trappe at OSU, has been
studying inoculating seedlings, such as fir, with truffle spores to
see if they can be induced to grow on the tree's roots. In nature,
truffles are the fruiting bodies that grow on a fungus network (called
mycorrhiza) underground on tree roots. The relationship between tree
and truffle is symbiotic - mutually beneficial. Besides the tree
fungus offering a source of nutrients for the truffle, this fungus on
the roots helps the tree take better hold in the soil. The web-like
fungus system help the tree absorb more nutrients from the soil.
CURRENTLY, finding truffles is a chancy thing,. But Michaels likens
where science is now in research of truffle production to where
mushroom production was only a few decades ago, when they were still
being harvested wild in caves. Now, obviously, tons are grown and
culitvated in darkened warehouses.
How Michaels happened to fall into funding for such a project is as
rare an occurrence as finding a truffle.
After two California bankers read a newesppaer article about Trappe's
work with domestic truffles, they called him. He was among those
invited to the First California Truffle Conference where mycologists
with a special interest in truffles gathered to exchange information.
The upshot of earningabout his work was that they financed a $50,000
grant to OSU for further study. Michaels just happened to be in the
right place at the right tim, looking over Trappe's department for
graduate work, with a background in chemistry and plant pathology, and
having been raised on a mushroom farm, to boot.
Truffles have been studied for years in oregon. That they are part of
a fungus that grows on a tree's roots has already been mentioned. But
just how they fit into the ecosystem wasn't clear until a few years
ago when a wildlife biologist told Trappe about finding a trruffle in
the mouth of a squirrel he had shot. Trappe knew that small mammals
dig up and eat truffles.
"THEY'RE THE original gourmets," Trappe quipped. He didn't know how
important the food was in their diets or what happened to the fungus
spores that were eaten. But he and the biologist decided to find out.
With the aid of a microscope, Trappe examined stomach contents and
feces of mammals and discovered he could recognize fungal spores,
specifially those types that produce truffles underground, as opposed
to those that produce mushrooms above ground.
He also established the important link in their life cycle. Mammals
sniff around and dig up the pungent vegetation: then, quite simply,
"They poop a little package of spores," which may contact a new
rootlet and develop a new mycorrhiza system. The "fruit" is the
truffle.
Trappe and Michaels have been fortunate to have a group of educated
truffle buffs - the North American Truffling Society - helping them
collect field data.
The group's 38 members, headed by president Tony Walters of Lebanon,
ore., has discovered seven to eight new species this spring in places
Trappe didn't think it was worthwhile looking.
"IT HUMBLES me," he said.
Walters, an ethnobotanist who's taught at Linn benton Community
College and who'll teach at OSU, said the group is trying to
computerize a lot of the information on the environment where they're
finding various species. They're discovering truffles growing in
winter and summer, not just in the fall as previously thought. Some
are interested in finding truffles for their culinary value, others
from a mycological interest.
Walters noted his group's indebtedness to Trappe for spending time
showing slides to the group, helping them upgrade their knowledge of
what they were looking for.
Truffles have legendarily been considered aphrodisiacs. The Romans
dedicated them to Venus, believing that they stimulated love. .The
Greeks dedicated them to their love goddess, Aprhodite. And the
French? Would they pass up the chance to promote eating anything if it
might increase one's lovemaking? Louis XV's mistress, Madame
Pompadour, resorted to a dietary regimen of truffles, vanilla and
celery (all supposed aphrodisiacs) to "heat the blood." Louis' demands
exhausted her, according to the literature - she was "not strong
enough for continual lovemaking," yet she feared "not pleasing the
King anymore, and of losing him."
Since Trappe and Michaels aren't leaving any truffle leads unruffled,
they've made tentative arrangements with the Oregon Regional Primate
Research Center near Beaverton to check out this legendary truffle
property. Whether truffles make the monkeys monkey around more is the
presumed question. And if they do, whether what's good for those
primates is good for people is another question.
All of the truffle puzzle may someday fit together - why truffles
grow where they grow, and if and where they might be cultivated.
Michaels could someday have his dream, too: To forsake the academic
side of his truffles work and get down to the possibily very
profitable business of raising them.

Posted as a courtesy by
Daniel B. Wheeler
www.oregonwhitetruffles.com