Leaving Conques in search of truffles.

We left the delightful town of Conques and settled in for a 90 minute drive to Limogne-en-Quercy. We arrived a little early, so walked around the town and found a place for a coffee. The resident dog - a French bulldog- was extremely friendly, wanting lots of attention.

We then headed a bit out of town to the Truffle farm to meet Marie-France and her trusty dog Caline (a 4 year old beagle). Marie-France has about 1,000 trees on her farm. They were planted by her grandparents and, on average, only 10% of trees will yield truffles in any given year. It can take up to 15 years before you see any results and there are many other factors that come into play such as the weather, especially rain and heat, the health of the trees and just plain luck! The largest truffle Marie-France has ever found was around 300 grams and it was the last truffle ever produced by that tree (its swan song). Strangely, she didn’t sell it, and keeps it in a jar to show the tourists.

There are many rules and regulations that need to be followed regarding the growing and selling of truffles. Marie-France also informed us that they pay tax on the number of trees they have not the size of their yield, which seemed unfair to us, but she replied that is how it is.

Selling truffles is done at an open air marketplace during the truffle season - the best are the ‘winter’ truffles found between December and March. You have your truffles in a basket and a buyer will approach you with a written offer which you can accept or reject so, again, chance and luck play into it. Once you have agreed on a price you cannot then take a better price if one is offered. Marie-France said she did do that as a 15 year old selling truffles for the first time, and was allowed to get away with it, but was warned it would not be acceptable going forward.

At the end of the market, you take your basket of truffles and your slip of paper to the buyers car where the exchange of truffles for cash takes place. The best truffles are black or black and grey, followed by the brown and grey ones. Marie-France said there are truffles that don’t cut the mustard and are sold at a cheaper price to be used as ingredients in other products such as pâté or saucisson.

Marie-France did mention that Australia is producing some very good quality truffles, and that China produces a lot of truffles but their taste, perfume and general quality is inferior. Marie-France told us the best way to use truffles is freshly sliced or grated and added to the meal at the last minute. She also told us to place eggs in a container with some slices of truffle and leave them for 24 hours so that the flavour will be absorbed by the eggs and then make omelettes, these are known as a poor man’s omelette.

The last part of the time with Marie-France was a live demonstration of Caline finding truffles. It was amazing how well she did at finding them. All dogs must be trained to become truffle hunters and many breeds of dog are successful. Years ago they used pigs for the role of truffle hunter but they became too large and difficult to manage and also, unlike dogs, love truffles so you had to be quick to take the truffle from the pig before they ate it!

Following the demonstration we got to sample truffles on fresh bread with butter and also on warm toasted bread with cheese. We also drank a glass of truffle wine, which was delicious.

After the visit concluded we headed back into town to have lunch at a cafe before heading off along the smaller roads to Rocamadour.Read more