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A brief historyThe truffle is a fruit of the earth which has been known since ancient times. The first testimonies come from the diet of the Sumerian people and from the time of Jacob the Patriarch, around 1600 – 1700 B.C. The ancient Greeks called it Hydnon ( from which is derived “hydnology”, that is the science of the truffle) or Idra, the Latin people called it “Tuber”, from the verb “tumere” (=to swell) the Arabs “Ramech Alchamech Tufus” or “Tomer” and “Kemas”, the Spaniards called it “Turma de tierra” or “Cadilla de tierra”, the French “Truffe” (derived from the meaning fraud, linked with the play by Molière “Tartuffe” in 1664), the English “Truffle” and the Germans “Hirstbrunst” or “Truffle”. The ancient Sumerians used the truffle mixing it with other vegetables such as barley, chick peas, lentils and mustard, while it is said that the ancient Athenians adored it so much that they conferred citizenship upon Cherippo’s sons, for inventing a new recipe. Plutarch maintained that the origin of the “Tubero” lay in the combined action of water, heat and forked lightning. Similar theories were shared or contested by (amongst the most noted) Pliny, Martial, Juvenal and Galen which resulted only in generating lengthy arguments. Very probably their “tuber terrae” were not the perfumed truffle we know today, but the “terfezia Leanis” (Terfezia Arenaria) or similar species. These were more abundant then rather than now, in North Africa and West Asia, reaching a weight of three to four kilos; they were highly appreciated (to the extent of being called “food of the gods”) since in those days other tubers like the potato and Jerusalem artichoke from America, were wholly unknown. Even though Rome had Publio Elvio Pertinace as emperor, from Alba, the “Tuber Magnatum Picer” never formed part of the refined Roman recipes. The truffles which delighted the palates of the patrician Romans were deficient only in their quality, because their price was very high, so much so that Apicius included six truffle recipes in his “De Re Coquinaria” Book VII, citing the most expensive dishes. Meanwhile, studies on the truffle proliferated. Pliny the Elder called it “callus of the earth”while Juvenal was so infatuated that he said “I would rather the corn failed than the truffle”. Throughout the Middle Ages the truffle had no place at man’s frugal table but remained instead the fodder of wolves, foxes, badgers, pigs, wild boar and rats. (Continue)  |
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