Trevor and Marda Norris, and their dog, Clyde, search on the Woodford Truffle farm, for Black Winter Perigord truffles in an orchard of specially-planted oak trees, close to the town of Ceres in the Western Cape. Photo: AFP/Rodger Bosch
Though they mean little to most people, truffles are the “black diamonds” of the fine-dining sector, being used by the world’s top chefs to create dishes which only the rich and famous can afford.
Now, there are some farmers in South Africa who want to cash in on the mystique of the truffle, a pungent fungus which attaches itself to the roots of oak trees and which is a major crop in Mediterranean Europe.
Volker Miros and his son Paul began their project on the family farm in the Cederberg area of the Western Cape in 2009, and now have 100 hectares of oak orchards where the truffles have infiltrated the roots of the trees.
The delicacy goes for about R20 000 per kilogram and the orchards produce hundreds of kilogrammes a year.
The truffles are not harvested in the normal way – dogs are specially trained to sniff out the roots where they are present.
We wonder how long it will take those litigious Europeans to come up with a name for the fungus, classify it as European and ban anyone from using the word “truffle ”to promote or sell it.
To which our response should be: anything you can do…
NOW READ: ‘Black diamond’ farming: SA’s ‘crazy’ truffle farmers cash in on bet
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