Truffle Hunting Throughout History

The first mention of truffles came in a Neo-Sumerian inscription around 2000 BC. It was an unflattering portrait of the enemies they were  facing in ancient Mesopotamia.

     “The Amorite is dressed in sheepskins, he lives in tents in wind and rain, he doesn’t offer sacrifices. Armed vagabonds in the steppe. He digs up truffles and is restless. He eats raw meat and lives his life without a home and when he dies, he’s not buried according to proper rituals. The remnants of the last giants who once lived on earth.”

      The truffle next turns up in the hands of the  Greek philosopher Theophrastus in the fourth century BC. A pupil under both Plato and Aristotle, he is considered the father of botany. His books Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants were required reading for scholars in the Renaissance.

In classical times it was thought truffles were made by thunderbolts and summer showers. The early Church considered them the subterranean spawn of Satan.

      Attitudes changed though when the Papacy moved their court into Avignon between 1309 -77. The tuber found its way into the kitchens and aroused the papal palates along with the wines of Provence.

       The efficacy of the truffle’s ability to arouse other areas of the human physiology has received little polite attention in French literature.

But in the court of Francois the First there was little doubt about their belief in the aphrodisiac qualities of the fungus. The man who brought Leonardo Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa to France used to send basketfuls of them to his mistresses.

        It was in the 16th Century Spanish galleons brought back the first turkeys to Europe. They were birds that were going to make a divine pairing with truffles and provide an inspiration to Francois Rabelais- the literary master of bawdy feasting, and author of Gargantua.

       They were called poulet d’Inde, the chicken from India. The father of French gastronomy, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin called them the most glorious present made by the New World to the Old.

In his book The Physiology of Taste published in 1825 the so-called poet of gluttony described dinde truffe as the pinnacle of courses to be served at dinner.

       The Italian composer , Gioachino Rossini recalled a touching anecdote about the dish. He said he had only wept three times in his whole life. Once when his first opera written at the age of eight failed to find public approval. The second time came when he first heard Niccolo Paganini  play the violin. And the last time when a truffled turkey fell out of his punt on a picnic.