A Gourmet's Feast

On Friday evening we were invited to have a meal with some friends here in the valley ... a meal themed around Truffles.
Our friend has been planting 'truffle' trees over the past 10 to 15 years and some of the first ones are now producing.

It is a bit of an inexact science as chance seems to play a large part in it. Will the spores grow and produce truffles, will the weather be right (not too wet, not cold) and we know that a lot of time is spent caring for the trees.  Bernard has been preparing a second plot for more 'truffle' trees (trees which have had their roots treated with the mycellium) over the past 4 to 5 years, clearing the land of trees and brush (he had to chop down 80 cubic metres of wood), clearing and breaking up rocks, erecting a fence to keep the deer out, planting the trees and finally creating a reservoir for rainwater to avoid having to cart water there in the summer.
Now the trees are producing and Bernard said that the truffles shown in the picture above would be worth about 600 euros!  This years crop is just coming on the market at anything from 1000 to 1200 euros a kilo!!!  This means that our meal must have used up to 100 euros worth of truffles.

We started with nibbles of sliced truffle on a piece of toast spread with truffle infused butter, then we had scrambled egg made with some cream and grated truffle accompanied with a chicory salad.  This was followed by a whole, small Brie sliced to make a cake with a filling of mascarpone and grated truffle. This had been prepared 2 days in advance and cling-wrapped and hence the cheese had an intense flavour of truffles!  We finished the meal with the only non truffle course, a caramel cream with toasted pain epice, a spicy honey cake.  The meal was,of course, served with a sweet white wine to enhance the truffles and then a red wine .. because one does!

A fabulous evening with lovely people.  A step nearer Christmas.