Black truffles
Delectable Black Truffles
From a workshop at a famed farmhouse in Provence, Mohan Krishnan and his wife enhanced their love for black truffles. Furthermore, an exclusive meal cooked by the late Chef Joel Robuchon only etched this love in stone. He reminiscences...
Patricia Wells was for the longest time, the American éminence grise, at least in food, located in Paris and writing for the International Herald Tribune. Her husband Walter was the Executive Editor of the IHT – and she was a powerhouse in her own right. She wrote some amazing French cookbooks, helped introduce Joel Robuchon to America and had done a whole host of good works, for other French Michelin-starred chefs. This was punya, absolute merit gained in the ‘80s, when bold-faced European chefs had not yet become global brands in their own right.
When Mina, my late wife heard that Patricia Wells was hosting a truffle workshop at her farmhouse in Provence, we had to go. Never has our money been thrust upon strangers, with as much fervour. This was before truffles, as a form of mushroom, had become part of the global vocabulary. Our Brit friend Charlotte was mystified. ‘What do you mean a truffle hunt? Are they going to tie up pieces of chocolate for you to pull off branches?’. We had to reassure her that these were not Harrods truffles, but things that grew underground, and had to be teased out of the earth by truffle farmers, who used hounds to unearth them.
Then, Mina heard that Joel Robuchon was going to come down to Provence and cook us a whole black truffle meal. She was on cloud 10. Nine was not good enough.
Robuchon was at that time the undisputed Number One chef in the world. We had eaten at his famous Paris restaurant, themed like a library, but this was another level altogether. The maestro was going to cook an entire meal for us, before our very eyes. He was going to prep, cook, plate and chat with us, a small group of about 12 people. Heaven!!!
We took the TGV to Avignon, got into our Hertz car and made our way to the sweet little village of Vaison la Romaine, checked into Le Beffroi (The Belfry, with all the obligatory jokes about bats in residence), hauled our heavy suitcases up two flights of winding stone stairs, changed in a rush, and headed off to Chez Wells.
We walked into a home full of people from the USA, who had flown in from New York or LA, and there was an excited buzz as Patricia sat us down around the fireplace, and walked us through the programme. Mina’s food creds were apparent in the first few minutes of conversation, and that always helped break the ice.
Roasting by the fire were small, whole black truffles, wrapped in aluminum foil, and by the time we were into our first glass of wine, each of us got a piece of black gold on a small plate. There were two young chefs in attendance, one of them was working her way through an apprenticeship at some of Paris’ top restaurants, who went on to become a major name in the Manhattan restaurant scene and on TV – Alex Guarnaschelli.
We had a course of puy lentil with shaved truffles on top, and Patricia murmured the old adage that things that grow together, go together. She was much given to sage whisperings – another one delivered as we were madly clicking pictures – always shoot above the waist.
One of the dishes had a base of black truffle oil. I was insanely proud to have sussed this out all on my own, and Patricia was delighted to pronounce that I was right. For me, heaven on a plate is a mound of mashed potato, and a small lagoon of truffle oil in the centre. Imagine my shock the next day, when I discovered that truffle oil is a mere chemical creation, not an ounce of black truffle resides in it.
Some of the judges at MasterChef think it is worse than indecently exposing yourself in public, to use this abomination. They can take a hike. I don’t care, I think that truffle oil adds a wonderful flavour to a lot of things, and I am okay with it being a chemical. Better life through chemistry has many avatars.
Mina had taken a pass on the early morning truffle hunt, she preferred to get her shut-eye, and so there I was with our merry throng traipsing in the woods following the truffle farmer and his trusty hound. A truffle hound is a very ungainly, unprepossessing canine that looks like an Indie (stray is so cancelled) at Mohammad Ali Road. I was expecting a nobler creature, or perhaps a fellow with a slightly porcine aspect in a nod to the truffle pigs that they had replaced. However, the scraggly pooch got the job done.
The dog pointed, scrabbled, stopped and waited for his treat, while the owner expertly dug out the rest of the soil and extracted a fine-sized truffle. There’s a great deal of skill involved in delicately digging the truffle out, any scratches or dents means an immediate loss of market value. The truffles are wrapped in cloth – I think it was muslin, and gently stashed away in a leather satchel. It also takes a long time to train the truffle dog not to scarf the truffle down, or even scratch it – but the farmer refused to tell us how he got the pooch to back off, and wait patiently for his own doggy treat. I suspect some tough love was involved.
Everything about the truffle business is a secret – exactly which part of the woods do they find their truffles, when they go to harvest them, how much they actually sell the stuff for, and it goes without saying that it’s all a cash business. The French truffle farmers loathe the taxman with all the enthusiasm of Bombay’s hawala merchants, or Indian agri-landlords.
Demo over, we went off to the local truffle ‘factory’. Freshly excavated truffles were brushed clean, cleaned, and the smaller ones were packed in tins for sale. The prized big truffles were to be transported fresh to the top restaurants in Paris, or to CDG airport, to fly all over the world. I saw
the bottles of truffle oil being filled, and I was once again assured that it was a truffle-free product.
That evening, two young chefs from Paris drove up in a mini van, stocked to the gills with all the supplies that Robuchon needed to cook his meal, including his own oven. Why his own oven? Were the Wells kitchen ovens not good enough? Robuchon preferred his own because they have very sensitive controls and he could get exactly the right temperature that he needed. Wow! Why not? If rockstars insist on travelling with their sound and light gear, why not the Super Chefs?
The two chefs slaved without even taking a smoke break till the entire set up was complete, and then paced in circles around the room. Robuchon came in from the TGV station, said hello and went off to inspect his set-up. That’s the thing about masters of their craft. Work first. Make sure everything is perfect. He was satisfied, the young chefs could now chill out, and they must have painted the town seriously red that night.
What a feast we had the next day, cooked from the start right before us. Humongous black truffles brought down from Paris, were sliced and heaped up in a two-kilo mound on the table. We all went up, stuck our faces over the truffles and allowed the aroma to wash over our souls.
Almost everyone took notes, took pictures and lingered adoringly on every French word that Robuchon spoke, ably translated by Alex into suitable American. It’s one of the great French traditions, or at least it was, that the chef only spoke French, despite being fluent in English, and had a translator, whom he would feel free to correct. Ah, the rituals that must be followed, and respected.
Robuchon let us into a little secret. The big debate in France is – where do the better truffles come from? Provence or Perigord? He was partial to the latter, because he comes from that region. So, he had brought truffles from Perigord via Paris. Since we had been chowing down on Provence truffles, he wanted us to try the ‘better’ variety. I was happy to try them. Talk about being spoiled for choice.
Then the cooking began. Roast chicken with black truffles. What a treat it was to see the master slide each truffle, which had been cut into a neat circle, in a perfect formation, under the chicken skin, till the whole chicken looked like it had grown a truffle coating. With great ceremony, the chickens, two of them, were taken out into the courtyard where the ovens had been set up, slid into the shelves, Chef checked the settings and then closed the oven door with a flourish. He shooed us off inside, to continue with the rest of the meal.
The starch was a dish of macaroni with truffles.
To top off the meal, chocolate ganache flan made with 90% cocoa. For the first time I learned that dark chocolate has varying strengths… and the chef had brought us chocolate at 60, 70, 80 and 90%, so we could get the full experience.
‘En table’ and we were bundled off to our seats while the maestro oversaw the plating and presentation of the food. We sat basking in the Michelin glow till late in the afternoon, staggered back to our hotel and went right to sleep, unwilling to sully our palates with the taste of anything plebeian, like water.
We finished the truffle experience with a blowout at Les Baux. A superb 10-course lunch, each dish featured truffle as the hero, topped off by truffle ice-cream. We said goodbye to Patricia and the entire gang, and drove off to Marseille. We had dinner reservations at what was touted as the best bouillabaisse café on the sea front at the Vieux Port. Charmingly, it was called Le New York.
Mina bought and cooked much black truffle over the years. Truffle in chicken, truffles with lentil, truffles with pasta, truffles on their own, truffle ‘salsa’, truffle salt, truffle on toast, pasta infused with truffles, and of course black truffle on its own, warmed up to the right temp.
I have become a connoisseur of truffle oil that I guzzle, not drizzle, on to my food. To take a mound of mashed potato, dig a hole in the centre, fill it with truffle oil, stir it with a firm wrist action, even the idea makes me salivate as I am writing this.
To shamelessly steal a great line from a great writer – nobody knows the truffles I have seen! My only regret is that we did not ever dine at the Hotel Bristol in Paris. In the most exquisite homage to Joel Robuchon, when he shut down his Paris HQ and announced his retirement, they regularly offered a Memories of Robuchon menu – featuring the Poulet with Truffe Noir, and the potato tart.
It’s not enough to remember a great man. There’s also the matter of how you celebrate his memory – and the Bristol did it with great elegance. Maybe that’s what made the maestro come out of retirement, and get back into the restaurant biz once again. The legacy of the Atelier Robuchon is now a global phenomenon, an ongoing tribute to a true master.