Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

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Hello and welcome to cookie issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cookie cutters coming to you live on the heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from roughly 1245 Where am I today says Bushwick where Brooklyn while you forgot to say Roberta's pizza. Yeah, well that's just didn't go well. You're supposed to like you gotta you gotta you gotta do the job. So we have as usual in the studio, Anastasia the hammer Lopez, which you refer to in a question as the amorous Did you like that? Did you enjoy the cameras? Yeah. And we got Dave in the booth. How you doing? Dave? I'm good. How are you? Good calling. Oh, by the way, we have special guests on the phone. I'm gonna bring him on quite yet. Because I gotta tell you what, who he is. I don't actually know. What are you there? Professor? You there. Hello. Hello. Hey. So we have a special guest today. Charles now. Dr. Charles now your he pronounces his last name like 70s Disco style, love fever. Even though it's written Frenchie style, the FEV but you go by love fever, which I think is like 1000 times better. What do you think says yeah, is that true?

Yeah, seriously American.

Yeah, seriously American, which I know everyone here knows. I appreciate and Professor LeFevre Dr. The fever is the world's authority on specifically on Oregon truffles but all things truffle. He is a you're a mycologist Correct. That is correct. Is there a soy specialty within mycology that deals with truffles?

Oh, no, not a name for it. You could make one up so truffle ologists

truffle apologist? Ecto Miko Rizal ologists so, so So anyway, so how do you like to be referred to by the way, what do want me to call you? Charles are fine. Okay, Charles. So call in all of your truffle related questions. Now. As I said he actually has a company where he grows. Well He cultivates European tuber Malana forums in Oregon as well as collects the local domestic Oregon truffle varieties and searches all over the country and the world for new interesting unused whether they taste good or whether they don't have varieties of truffles. So you can call in any, any and all truffle related or probably any mushrooms psychological questions. 27184972128. That's 718-497-2128. So let's get let's just get started right away. And let's talk about kind of want you to give the by the way, our our listeners here, the cooking issues crowd is not afraid of a technical jargon or complexities or anything, so you don't need to like hold back or anything. Why don't you just basically explain what a truffle is?

What is the truffle Well, truffle mushroom. And but unlike other mushrooms, they depend on animals to disperse their spores. So where mushrooms will disperse their spores in the wind. Truffles depend on animals, finding them digging them up eating them for their dispersal. So and that's kind of key to the whole understanding of why truffles are expensive. Because they imagine they're, they're hidden in the forest. out in the wilderness, it's cold, it's wet, it's dark. And they have to somehow convince some animals to come find them. So they just, they use every trick they can to attract animals from as far away as they can to eat them. And it explains why they're expensive.

Now, so So let's so this is where they're underground. And they're like the the fruiting body of these, these funguses that fungi that live in close proximity to certain tree roots, right?

That's right. Yeah, they're in a micro Raizel symbiosis with the trees. It's both the fungus and the tree and each other

not and the hard part about it, right is is that these truffles they they only they don't grow with the tree for its entire life. Right? Don't you have to find like, like a specific like, this particular one likes to live in trees that are between like 15 and 50 years old? Isn't it? Like all weird and crazy like this?

Yeah, there is ecological succession on the roots of an individual tree. So yes, different truffles live it within a different window of time on roots of the trees. Fortunately, almost all truffles live on very, very young trees, which is why we

say how long, like let's say you're gonna go like oak hazelnut, like European style, like, like, what are we looking at for the age of the optimum age for truffling up a tree?

Well, the, among my customers, the very youngest trees that have produced truffles have been three years old.

Hmm, cool. And so you actually do you use or you sell like trees with that have been inoculated with the spores or no? That's correct. Yes. Just so you know, when I ever I say spore Anastasia my cohorts coast here, like she did test the word spore maybe you can make you're not hate the word spores so much.

You can think of a sport as a seed serves the same function in the lifecycle of the organism that a seed does.

Technically, obviously not correct, but makes her feel better celebrate the so now here's, here's my other thing. So one of your I don't even know where to start, because I've got so much to so much to deal with here on on the truffles. So let's go back to this smell. So all truffles because they all live underground. By the way? How far underground? Are we talking?

Oh, anywhere from actually on the surface where you can see them to three or four feet deep.

Three or four feet? Can a dog smell three or four feet deep?

Yes, we can the world's largest Italian white truffles live sound three feet deep.

Wonder how it tasted? Is there any difference in taste between depth? Is there any sort of like in a particular region? So assuming there's a terroir for region, which I'm gonna have you talk about in a minute? Is there any relationship between size and depth and flavor?

I don't know that there's any connection between size and flavor or depth and flavor. But there could be there's certainly a huge variation in flavor. For one truffle for the next it's likely that the host tree has an impact on their flavor. And then the region very easily could. But there may be more variability from one truffle to the next. Even within a place than there are between places, really.

So like tuber melanosporum, the Perigord truffle the black truffle. So if you were to take it, I'm sure you have I don't know if you take one that you've harvested in in Oregon, and you were to somehow take one that was harvested in France and then fly to some point in the middle. So they each were out of the dirt for the exact same length of time. And they were the same, you know, relative size and whatever. Would there be a big difference in flavor between the two that were grown in different areas assuming they were on the same kind of tree substrate.

So far, nobody has has shown that there is a difference between truffles grown in their natural habitat versus truffles going outside the natural habitat. But of course, in different regions of Europe where truffles are grown, there's there's a perceived difference, like the truffles from powerboat are the most expensive? Were those from Spain are a little less expensive?

Even and scrape, so whistling at CES expensive? You would assume that people have figured out tests for faking it, right? Because there's a lot of money involved. Is it? In other words, like, is it one of these things where it's very hard to tell the difference between where they come from and so you can have people selling one item as another and, and Providence just become something you have to kind of take on faith or?

Absolutely, I think probably the majority of profits that are coming from Perigord are actually harvested elsewhere.

And well, but another thing is, is that like a lot of things that are faked, right, like wines, you know, there's a difference between fooling an expert and fooling, you know, a relative novice, right. So when you're faking an old Bordeaux, you just have to get close to faking an old Bordeaux and you're going to 99% of the people aren't going to be able to tell the difference. But sometimes experts can sometimes they can't, and it has to be done, you know, with actual analysis. But you're saying that even experienced expert truffle eaters and cookers and prepares, probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between let's say, a Spanish tuber melanosporum and an actual French one.

I think that they probably could not reliably tell where the truffles had come from. But there's one possible exception to that. And that's what the Italian white truffles. They're the aroma they're shaping the color does vary from one place to another. So truffles from certain regions are flattered others around her. So that might be one clue over the next week.

And do you what do you identify? Do you attribute that to, to local conditions or to basically like, almost not cultivars, because not cultivated, but varieties? In other words,

I think it's more like local conditions, South compacted soil is how Rocky the soil is, whether the truffle has to grow around roots and rocks and

things. Okay, so now, now when it comes to truffles, right? No matter what they are, they all have mean, how do you describe they're all funky, right? So it's like almost, they're not. The majority of them are supposed to be found by what by rodents, things like rodents?

Yeah, the definition of the word truffle is that they depend on animals to disperse their spores. That term animal is very broad. So it can be flies or slugs, or rodents or mammals. They're even examples of birds dispersing them.

But I mean, but but in other words, like they're not shooting for carnivores specifically. So even though dogs are carnivores, they happen to have good noses. They're not aiming at carnivores.

Right. So carnivores are the one group of animals that do not eat truffles are not the one but there's one major group of animals that does not eat truffles.

So why is it that I mean a dogs presumably are good just because they're sniffers are good. And you can train them to sniff out anything. By the way, you train people how to train their dogs, right?

We do. Yeah,

you sent me some a he actually he sent me some information on training, I was able to train my my black lab that my smaller dog hasn't got taken to training it in general. But I was able to train major big dogs my lab to find truffle oil anywhere in my yard. But I was unable to find any tuba. Any truffles on my on my property anywhere. But my like Professor also sent me or Charles also sent me some Oregon truffles, which we'll talk about in a minute. And I was able to get major fairly easily to go find the shavings from the outside of it all over my apartment. So it's not like it's not rocket science. If you have a good dog with a good nose, you can follow basic commands, you can train them to go look for troubles on your property. Yes.

That's That's right. It's very easy. Yeah. Anyway,

so we'll get back to that in a minute. But But my main question is, is it? Why would something that smells animali attract non carnivores herbivores? It seems strange if I was going to attract an herbivore, if I want to track flies I get right you want to have some sort of like weird funky animal carrying something, right? Some process of something doing something funky, but with with like a mouse, like what the heck like Why wouldn't it give off some sort of like delicious carrot smell or some sort of like something that you think would attract an herbivore? Why does it give off these kind of animal notes? I mean, in other words, my point is, are the animals looking for something other than food, boom, boom, boom, but then they and they find it? They're like, I can eat this thing and they eat it. I mean, what do you think?

I think obviously think it's very likely that the truffles and the animals that this person could have co evolved and that different truffles, tune their aroma to the physiology of the animal. They're trying Have a track. So different truffles are wildly different from each other. Some of them probably do smell like carrots. Others smell like fruit. Some smell like Juicy Fruit gum.

Do you like to do like Juicy Fruit gum?

Well, you know, it's interesting when you find it out in, in the dry forest up a tree line, some beautiful setting. It's an it's an amazing experience. This smells juicy, come down coming out of the ground.

Sir, now. So here's the point that I think one of your main point and by the way, you guys should know anyone who's near Portland or you know, near that area. Next week is the Oregon truffle festival that actually you host Charles that I'm going to be going to along with Peter Meehan, from Lucky peach and Harold McGee, we're all going together and we're going to go out and find truffles and cook with truffles and eat with truffles. And it's a it's a grand old time. And we actually get to meet him in person. But so when you're talking Oregon truffles, one of the things that you get kind of everyone, let's everyone's biased, and they really like the you know, the white like the classic Tuber magnatum white truffle from Italy, or the Paraguay or the black truffle tuber melanosporum. And everyone's like, these are the best everything else blows. And partly, I think one of the your points is is that most of the other truffles are not harvested in a way that is going to produce good truffles, which we'll have you talk about in a minute. But I think the other thing is that people don't allow for difference, right? So they can just be these other truffles like the Oregon truffles that we're going to talk about. They can just be different. They don't have to be the same thing right now they're

wildly different. The Oregon white truffle smells like pineapple where the Italian white truffle smells like garlic. They're wildly different from each other and they're used in different ways. And I actually find in my experience that people's preferences are kind of set by the truffles that they experienced first.

By instance here you have a truffle person you like truffles. I like white ones. I don't like black ones, you know like Blacklands she's loved the Stasi only likes either either she she's wants the most expensive possible, most expensive possible one. And by the way, I brought I have with me the left. What's left of my stash of truffles. We're going to shave on top of the pizza that we have here at lunch with the birds but I bought the worst like the crappiest truffle shaver. I went to freakin several sirloin Tom and bought this and it's made in Italy but it's just garbage. It's just the garden most garbage truffle shaver by the way what we're at it before we get into this Are you a believer in in trimming off the outside with a with a paring knife or are you a rubbing person? Are you How do you like to do it?

I think actually there's an aesthetic appeal to having the rind around the edge of the slice. Thank you for that.

And then what do you like then? Do you rub it or do you don't wash them? Right? I mean what do you do?

Oh we do wash them? Yeah, so you don't want the soil on the truffle

mess you just wash pat dry and then shave? Yes, exactly. All right. So you're not a believer in paring them down. Do you think you're throwing stuff away? Are you just like that you like that just like that line around it that shows the difference in color the outside of it.

Yeah, that's that line on the outside is attractive, but you don't think it's actually a quality criterion truffle that's the size that will fit through a shaver. It's nice and round so that you can get that entire when actually makes that more attractive.

Okay, now, now that the two main truffles that you guys are doing, first of all, one of them the Oregon black truffle isn't isn't a tuber species. It's a different species. Right? That's right. It's Luke Tanzeem. And then is that is it like a super closely related or no.

They are fairly closely related as the desert truffle from North Africa. They're all in.

But I noticed when you call in is when you cut open the Oregon black truffle, the winter, black truffle whatever you want to call it. It the the black lines on the inside aren't as distinct as they are on like a Melanosporum. It's like much more it's like gray and cream instead of like like Blackish. Gray and cream, would you would you say that's accurate or no?

Well, very sad. And actually the appearance of the interior of the truffle is is a good indicator of the quality of the truffle. So the more contrast there is more black and white they are that's a more mature truffle. And the same is true for the Oregon black truffles. But instead of marbling on the interior, Oregon black truffles are a kind of salt and pepper speckled black and white. Right.

So maybe that's what I was focusing on. Now the also the Oregon black truffle, it seemed to have kind of like a lot of more kind of roasty soy kind of notes than than the white one did, which as you say is more has more kind of fruity, not in a bad way but like solvent, the high notes right so the white one is more of a high note truffle and the other one's more like a roasty they have you ever use them together complement each other,

to use them together often. But actually you're telling you that that you're getting these roasty notes from the black truffle tells me a lot about that truffle, that black truffles have an enormous variety of aromas that they can produce. And when their their youngest, they're very, very fruity and sweet. And they develop more savory that's later

on, I actually took some of them that smelled sweeter and I made an ice cream out of the I actually thought I was gonna like the black ice cream a lot more than the white one and the white one was more animali also the white one had more kind of classic mushroom notes to the taste than I mean had those these like truffle notes as well. But it also has the white which I guess what's the what's the species there? It's tuber organizing, right? The like that one along with the truffle notes had some classic mushroom notes at least when it was made into an ice cream me Do you agree with that or no?

Well, yes. And actually the way you prepare the truffle can influence whether or not you produce that much aroma when you so when he first said that it made me think that you had graded the truffle was shredded.

On the white I did the in the ice cream for the white one i Yes, I did.

That that mushroom we note is a product of the tissue damage from grading with truffle.

So if you don't want that you just leave it whole or, or

just create less surface area just use a single slice, something like that.

Yeah, I slice the heck out of it and then masqueraded in cream and egg yolk and then spun it into an ice cream. Yeah.

There's an interesting byproduct. That's which is that mushroom. compound is one Octan three oldest smallest mushroom. And it is not present in a fresh truck. And it only it only is produced by the truffle when the truffle is damaged. And it's most noticeable when the truffle is frozen. And it starts it's an unattractive aroma and something you don't really want it.

Really I like to taste a mushroom that can understand what you're saying, if it's an indicator that someone did something they shouldn't have. Right, then I can see how it's, it's kind of like it's like any trained olive oil person hates any sort of frosty or like any sort of like fermented notes in their in their olive oil. Whereas people who haven't been trained to hate it, don't hate it. You know what I mean? So it's, it's a yes. So in order to warn people when they're buying, like, for instance, expensive white truffles, and they're testing to see whether they've been frozen or not what they're looking for is a mushroom note.

It's obvious when a truffle has been frozen, it's soft, it loses its integrity, the marbling is gone. And the interior frozen truffle is ruined.

Is there any way to is there any good way to freeze a truffle? Like in other words, like if I were to do it quickly, like in liquid nitrogen, can I preserve the structure of it without ruining it? Or is it just hosed entirely?

Well, I would try. I imagine it's the ice crystals forming in the interior that damages the tissue and invokes that enzymatic reaction to produce the lanoxin three All right, well, truffles are quite quickly, that might not have a chance to happen

if you can't freeze them that quickly because they're so light. I mean, that's the thing. It's like I imagined that it's fairly poor conductance through a truffle because they have a lot of air in them. So I wouldn't imagine that you could get as rabid of freezing as you would like. So in other words, so when you freeze an egg yolk, slowly, you denature the proteins to the extent that the egg yolk remains solid after a thaws if you liquid nitrogen freeze an egg yolk, then when you thought again, it goes runny because the it hasn't had that it didn't have the time to complex as it was going down as it was freezing. And so it comes back basically to its raw state again. But you know, egg yolks can be egg yolks are very high in water and dense. And so it's fairly easy to freeze them fairly quickly. I imagine a truffle which is much much lighter than water would probably not be as easy to freeze quickly. Although we could test it. Hell, we could test it.

Yeah, that'd be interesting. The one thing though, I think it's important to know is that the value of a truffle is the aroma itself, not the body of the organism. So if there's if you capture the aroma in something else, that's the most authentic, authentic way to store truffles or at least a store the experience of the truffle. So to capture that aroma in some kind of fatty food, say eggs, or cheese or meat is the best way to store it rather than freezing it.

I'll tell you that my whole refrigerator smelled like them when when this stuff was in there and we've become accustomed to it now in the studio but we haven't here in the studio inside of their plastic containers and they still the aroma, the aroma goes right through a plastic deli container. And like into I mean there's you know fills up the whole the whole area. Now but to go back to the aroma and like how much day is versus cooking so the argument against what's the truth machine the Chinese truffle which truffle is that?

Sorry, the bad connections you said, What's the difference between those?

No, no, what truffle variety. So at one time when I was in France, I went to Rome, Greece, which is their market. And I was talking to their truffle guys. And then they showed me these like, basically these Chinese truffles, which they call a truth machine. And then the guy said to me, he's like, they smell fine when they're, you know, in this box, he says, but they lose everything when you use them. And so they're relatively useless. So what about the first of all, what species is that is that is the Chinese truffle that they're selling? And secondly, what about this, like, they they don't maintain their odor when they're being used in a culinary sense, and is there just strictly like more odorant to stay around in like a Malana, seforim or magnatum than there is in some of these other species.

That Chinese truffles are interesting. It's a complex species. There's vast diversity in China that people are discovering right now. So there are a number of species that could be the most likely species is tuber indicum, which is very closely related to the French black tuber melanosporum. But the reason I think the primary reason that they have such a bad reputation and their prices are so low is because of the way they're harvested. They're used the harvested with rakes like potatoes. And another difference between a truffle and mushroom instead of truffle needs to be right in order to have its culinary value. So like a fruit in that sense, it's there's nothing to gain by harvesting them immature there were there is with a 14 year US intro. So you have to let them mature. And each truffle ripens at a different time over a three month period typically. So an indiscriminate way of harvesting them produces mostly immature truffles that have no culinary. So that's the primary problem.

So you say that's the same problem with Oregon truffles, right? The majority of domestic truffles that are harvested are not harvested using dogs or other form of animals smelling right.

Right. Right. That is that is the main reason by Oregon truffles. Historically, it's been inexpensive and unappreciated.

And so you're on kind of like a mission, you and your cohorts are on a mission to basically say look at, we're going to sell these ones that are harvested by dogs now. Not harvested by but found by hunted by, by dogs. But you know, one of the problems I've noticed with lots of things in this country, for instance, country ham is to come to mind, because it's something I've worked with a lot is that when you don't have a an easy way for consumers to know what they're purchasing. Right, it's hard to get the extra value on top of what you're doing. So, you know, and I was talking to the country ham producers, I was like, look at you know, country ham is hugely widely varying qualities. And you know, the definition is basically just based on a particular procedures, do you have some sort of label or consortium or some sort of way that a consumer can very easily tell, you know, this, this one, other than assuming that they have knowledge, and they can smell it, and they'd be like, this one has a great aroma, and this one is relatively useless? Is there some sort of like way that you guys are trying to get together to let the consumer know what's what?

There's a lot of conversation about that. But it hasn't happened. There's no certification yet. But it is obvious the difference is obvious. Anyone can tell. It's the difference between a trouble that has no aroma and a truffle that has lots of room.

Right? But someone could someone could have a jar full of rice and truffles at their place have like one or two ones that are decent, that happened to be decent, and it's thinks up the whole truffle jar. And then you buy the one you know, that got raked out and you're hosed, right. I mean, like you take it home and you're ruined.

That's right, you have to sniff every single truffle ease truffle needs to have a strong aroma of its own. Just just smelling the truffles in a jar is not good enough.

Now, how long like like, so how long do you think these suckers last? Like? How long is one of these last verses? Is there any difference in keeping time for an Oregon truffle versus for like, one of the European varieties or no?

Oh, there probably is. And it really depends on what characteristic you're looking at. The European truffle will stay intact longer. But it loses its aroma just as fast. So in terms of their their real value, their culinary value, the shelf lives are comparable and it's just a few days long. By the time the truffle is a week old, it's awesome. Most of its aroma,

even even under refrigeration,

even in refrigeration, regardless of what species it is, but there are exceptions. I mean, we've we've managed to Have keep truffles in great condition for 10 days or two weeks it can happen. And the storage conditions make a huge difference in

how long the truffle lasts. What's the optimum condition?

Well, a truffle was alive and it needs oxygen, you need to let them breathe. But if you give it too much oxygen, it'll expire more quickly. So it's, it's regulating the oxygen, the co2 in the container where you're storing them, that will extend the shelf life. So we keep them in like a Tupperware container in the refrigerator, the paper towel underneath to absorb excess moisture. That's another thing you need to keep the surface of the tropical dry.

Or it'll just start to like, just start to go soft and crazy. Right?

Right. You may have noticed that with your black truffles, they got lucky. You have to block them

dry every day. Some got wet looking in some didn't. Yeah, it's like, you know, you couldn't tell you know what I mean? Yeah. But like, commercially, is there like, can you can extend it by tightly controlling the oxygen in the environment? Or no,

you know, one of one of our speakers at the Oregon truffle festival, had a patent on it edible films that just limited the oxygen supply to the truffle who extended the cell phone.

When you say extended, extended at maximum quality, or is it extended it at okay, quality? In other words, are you saying that, like you're gonna get the perfect experience? Or you're gonna get like 80% of the experience once you've extended the shelf life?

Well, that's a great question. I don't know the answer.

Hmm. So when you're talking like you only have a couple of days, like how fast are these things getting to market? In other words, can you enjoy these things on the East Coast or just like a, you know, West Coast or done kind of a situation?

I do think truffles are the kind of food that it's the best experienced at the source. So it's the kind of food you need to travel for. But we can definitely get a good quality truffle to the east coast in a in a day.

But is that something you're interested in? Are you interested in extending the range? Or are you more interested in promoting tourism to Oregon?

Oh, both. We'd love to have a thriving truffle industry.

And what do you think about contracts? Like those things,

we definitely invite people to come to Oregon to experience hunting them and and experiencing them for source. There's one interesting phenomenon when you're using a dog to find the Oregon white truffles in particular. There's this puff of minty aroma that comes out of the ground that only lasts a few minutes.

Right when you get it out of me. I'm sorry, right? When you get it out.

Right when you get it out? It's this beautiful aroma that only lasts a very, very short time.

Can you capture it in alcohol?

You might be able to? A lot of the aroma compounds are soluble in alcohol.

What do you what do you think before it before we before I forget? What do you think of the pecan truffle? You're a competitor down Downey's there. Do you like those things?

Well, actually, we have a customer who is the first commercial grower of the contract was on inoculated trees. And that's in Southeast Georgia. So no, they're not competitors. We actually sell the countries with the calm truffles on their roots. I think the pecan truffles are very good. That smell is like mothballs. It's not particularly powerful, but it is attractive.

Yeah, okay. So you're not you're like you're not a huge fan is what I'm hearing. Like you're like they look good from a mycologist point of view, but not your favorite culinary truffle.

I think they're great. I you'll never hear me express a preference for one truffle over another.

No. Yeah. Well, you know, my last name is Arnold and they found a truffle in the Arnold Arboretum. And the I don't know where the I don't know whether you know, the person Matthew Smith who wrote the article. Yeah. And he said that, and I'd like to get your opinion on this because you when I spoke on the phone with you a couple of months ago, you said that there's undoubtedly truffle species in Connecticut where I am. And he writes New England's acidic soil, harsh winters and year round precipitation are in quotes not optimal for truffles. At least not the European varieties that people usually eat. Is that true that like New England soil like we're gonna have them but probably not delicious ones or do you disagree with his assessment?

I do disagree with this assessment. I think it's certainly the winters are cold too cold for in the Northeast is too cold for tuber melanosporum. But there's still the two Varkey that was found in the Arnold Arboretum introduced disease. And so we had some of those European troubles are already living in 3d in the Northeast. And then they're their native species. Those two were kinda like you LATAM and tuber Leone that both live in the Northeast naturally.

You actually inoculated some trees up in, in at Stone barns, right.

Well, you're right. We shipped some trees with the to receive them the burgundy trouble.

Did they work out or no? Are they grown?

That was they were planted just a year ago and I'd love to go visit them. I don't know how they're doing.

Listen, if you ever come out to in the Connecticut area, I'll take you know come And I want you to find whatever truffles we have here you have an open invite to come find whatever. Like I say we have hemlocks, we have three or four varieties of hickory, three or four varieties of oak, mostly of the red slash Black Oak group. So, you know, anyway,

any of those trees, in fact, all of those trees do that truffles living on their roots. I would love to find truffles in Central Park. I know they're there.

Well, why don't you should do it? Have you? Do you ever come to New York? You know, I, you can bring my dog

too. I actually just heard a lecture about it. The mycologist in, in New Hampshire doing a study on truffles. And he's finding unbelievable numbers of truffles in New Hampshire.

Well, you know, let's next time you're in New York, we'll take my dog up to Central Park. And you can, you know, show him where to show him where to look out.

I should be clear, there are hundreds of species of truffles and only a few that have culinary Valley.

Well, that's the thing like so when you say only if you have culinary, they all have some sort of smell right? Obviously, or they wouldn't be found. But you're saying a lot of the smells are unpleasant, or they're just not strong enough to have a culinary value.

Some of them are unpleasant. Some of them are, are really offensive, horrible smells, the kinds of things that flies with love. Others are really interesting. Smells like Juicy Fruit gum. But that's not a truffle that I think would ever have any culinary value.

Why not? Like why not? Like, I mean, people like Candy Cat mushrooms because they're sweet, right? And they have like those candy kind of aromas. Like why not? It's like, my whole point is is that you shouldn't try to have a, you shouldn't try to have something. Pretend that it's something else. Right? But like maybe it has some sort of use on its own. No.

Oh, absolutely. Oh, there's there's lots of truffles that are unrelated to the, to the tuber species in the champion desert truffles. They're fundamentally different. They also have wonderful aromas. They definitely fare well with a lot of foods.

So what's the price by What's the going price for the Oregon truffles?

Well, that's interesting. Now that we've introduced dogs, we've seen a price increase by about a factor of 10. So that price is bifurcated. The bulk of the truffles is still harvested with rakes and their prices are are low. You can probably buy either species for $150 a pound

and how much is a golf ball size? black truffle? How much does that weigh? How many to the pound? Oh,

let's say it's a 10th of a pound. Okay, so that's 10 bucks with the dog harvested truffle are our selling price is comparable to Super moulana Spark.

So it's $10 for a rate golf ball, and it's $100 for hunted golf ball.

That would be right. All

right. Cool. All right. So like I look forward to meeting you and we'll talk more about it. Don't call them their their truffle by the way. We do have a truffle we have a question. Let's let's do it. Let's do it. But they're on the phone or they're on on the line. All right. Caller you're on the air with with Dr. LeFevre.

Hey, David Salvan Shelton, Houston, how

are you? Nice. So So So Charles, I'll let you know Alvin Schultz, friend of ours in Texas believes that Oregon truffles are is a show parlance you'll have to excuse his enemies of quality. And so Alvin, go ahead.

So I've been I've been rethinking that statement that might have been harsh. I think I would agree with you on that. I think it's a different product. Right. And I guess my question for the doctor is, you know, how do you find a good reputable Oregon truffle dealer that harvesting with dogs versus the poorly harvested? Product? My experience with Oregon truffles in the past is great, especially compared to the European counterparts. I think all dogs are edible harvested. Charles, did you hear that?

It's really rough to hear. But the question is, how do you find a good truffle dealer who use the diagrams to truffles because it's always experiences that Oregon travelers really just don't perform as well as the European species. Great.

reputable dealer for Oregon truffles.

Yeah, reputable dealer for Oregon truffles you got anyone? I do.

And I know them personally not the name of their company. So there's a harvester named John gets GE tz who I would refer to anybody. He exclusively uses dogs. And it goes beyond that not just using dogs for the quality control but then grading the truffles to the point where what you're receiving is all good. So that's his company is one that I can recommend. They're in Florence, Oregon, etc.

Via tapping truffle at all?

Me know. Yeah, no, I haven't done any distillation work with it because my roadmap since we closed the bar down. It's been it's packed. But you know, I'd love to try that sometime. Have you professor Have you done distillation work with truffles?

Well, you certainly could. The thing is, the truffle is continuously giving off more and more aroma. So you don't really want to kill it. If you want to capture that aroma. You might not want to, to heat it or freeze it or do anything, you want to leave it intact and healthy and alive, and somehow just capture the stream of gas coming off of it.

But we can distill at basically, we can distill it at room temperature in a row to that. So we do vacuum distillation, and you're not heating it at all. The question is, is wood, the wood, the bath and so Elena, what I would do is I would basically put like an excluder almost and put the truffle in between the alcohol vapor and the put the truffle between the alcohol vapor. And you know, in other words, I have your alcohol in your distillation flask, and then have like a bulk flask there that you shove the truffle into, and then do the evaporation with the alcohol going through it. So you can capture this stuff without actually having to pay the truffle in alcohol, which we might, you know, hose it down. But I would remember so. So Charles, you'll correct me if I'm wrong. Like how long can it survive in an oxygen depleted environment? Because roto Vapp is basically in a vacuum. So it's going to be in a vacuum environment for, I don't know, 3540 minutes, at the minimum, is that going to totally kill it right there? Or will it last for a while in a vacuum environment.

You wouldn't want to subjected to so much vacuum that it damages the tissue. But I think he could survive for a while in that in those conditions, you might need to periodically refresh the oxygen to keep the truffle alive. So it continues to produce through aroma. But I think it would be fine to do that.

So you're saying you're saying pass the vapor through it almost like a sugar distillation where they're hanging? Chicken breast? Yeah,

well, exactly. I mean, what I guess what Charles is saying is that you have this truffle, you've spent the money on it, it's going to continue to make aroma for you know, for several days. So you want to continue to capture that aroma for several days rather than actually cutting it into it. And basically ending that truffles, aroma production right away by either cutting it and consuming it like we do classically when you could be capturing it over a long period of time. And so I guess what I'm saying is, is yeah, if you did it, if you bathe it in alcohol, it might kill it. Who knows? I don't know, where you know what? Yeah, whereas if it's just if it's in, you know, in an alcohol vapor environment for you know, 30 minutes, and maybe then you let it come back up and let it bring its aroma back and do it again, you could possibly capture a lot more of the enrollment. In fact, you could almost probably do it the the vapor equivalent of a soxhlet extraction where you're, you know, you could probably use yesterday's truffle booze, and then re distill that, again, through the through the, you know, the RE oxygenated truffle, like three four times to get to really concentrate the heck out of it. I don't know, I'm just like saying like the kinds of things that I might try if I had my my roadmap up and running