washingtonpost.com

Smells Like $500
Move over, Perigord: The black diamonds known as truffles are quite happy to
grow in North Carolina.

By Walter Nicholls
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 23, 2005; Page F01


Photo:
http://tinyurl.com/6r2u2
Caption:
AN EXPENSIVE AROMA: Washington chef Todd Gray takes in the pungent smell of
Garland Gourmet truffles on an expedition to a North Carolina orchard.
Below: Farmer Franklin Garland and his truffle-sniffing dog Ginger walk
along the filbert trees, whose roots are friendly to underground truffle
growth. At top right: Ginger, hard at work. (Photos Karen Tam For The
Washington Post)


ROLESVILLE, N.C.

A gray minivan bumps down an unmarked lane one recent morning and pulls into
what appears to be a neatly groomed, dormant orchard. On the sloping,
one-acre plot stand 500 filbert trees, bushes really, that produce
hazelnuts. It's harvest time. But no one is here for the nuts.

Farmer and entrepreneur Franklin Garland and his dog Ginger, a 5-year-old
standard poodle, get right to work.

"Find a truffle, Ginger. Find a truffle, Ginger," Garland repeats as the
pair start down the first row, both heads tilting toward the ground.

Ginger uses her sensitive nose to detect aromatic, farm-raised black
truffles -- Tuber melanosporum -- the highly prized, irregularly shaped
fungi that are native to the Perigord region of France. Under the right
conditions, they grow underground in a symbiotic relationship with the roots
of the filbert tree (Corylus avellana). But this day, friendly Ginger is
distracted by strangers nearby and can't seem to focus on fungus.

"She's being a total dingbat," says Garland's wife, Betty. "We should have
brought another dog. In 20 minutes, we would have two pounds."

At her side is Todd Gray, chef and owner of Equinox restaurant in downtown
Washington. Gray is a relatively new Garland customer who pays $500 per
pound for the odorous truffles harvested yearly, from mid-November to
mid-March, in this flat region of the state on the eastern edge of the
Piedmont.

At Equinox, Gray shaves truffles over pasta dishes, minces them into sauces
for beef and veal, and sprinkles tiny truffle batons on grilled scallops.
Last Wednesday night, at the James Beard House in New York, Gray served a
creamy Carolina truffle risotto with bacon-wrapped monkfish.

Today he's come for the first time to see the source for himself. "This is
the real deal," says the chef, a native of Fredericksburg who is noted for
his use of regional and seasonal ingredients. "I couldn't believe it when
they sent me a sample. It had that great pungency, with that characteristic
nutty, eucalyptus and tobacco smell."

Such truffles aren't thought to grow in the United States, let alone within
a day's drive of Gray's restaurant. "Man, I was thinking," he says, "this is
too good to be true."

And the price is right -- at least for the high-end restaurants that feature
truffles. Imported black truffles from France would cost around $800 per
pound this year. Other species of wild black truffles from Oregon and
imports from China are far less expensive but, for Gray, they lack flavor
and aroma. In winter at Equinox, he uses about a pound per week.

Truffles are expensive because they are difficult to find and harvest yields
have progressively lessened over the past 100 years. In 2002, United States
imports were 9,806 pounds, according to the Department of Commerce. In
recent years, most of the Perigord harvest from France and Spain has come
from oaks that have been inoculated with spores. Historically, pigs were
used to find the truffles. But dogs trained to find a specific scent have
proven less temperamental and less likely to damage the goods.

Eventually, Ginger stops and gives the soil a scratch. Sure enough, Garland
digs down and up comes what looks like a muddy, walnut-sized charcoal chunk.
He says some of the truffles found in this field are the size of a tennis
ball.

The Garlands together operate Garland Gourmet Mushrooms and Truffles, a
company Franklin Garland started in 1992 to produce truffles as well as
train dogs to find them. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a
sophisticated farmer who shops for suits "only on sale" in Milan, Garland
got the idea to raise this unusual cash crop after reading a newspaper
article in the late 1970s.

As the story goes, a French company was successfully inoculating the roots
of specific trees, such as filberts and oaks, with the truffle organism and,
under the right conditions, producing crops of mature truffles after a
number of years. He thought, "I'll try that myself."

In the end, it took Garland 11 years of trial and error to produce just a
few Perigord-like truffles, often referred to as black diamonds. When his
first truffles were unearthed, he received a brief flurry of publicity in
the United States. Since then, he has been quietly producing a few more
pounds each year, selling them mostly in the North Carolina area.

By his calculations, the climatic conditions in the Perigord region are
similar to those in the more temperate areas of the mid-Atlantic states.
Over the years, he fine-tuned the moisture level that the trees and truffles
need.

Garland won't say exactly what type of soil is best for truffle production,
although he takes unusual steps to maintain an alkaline soil by spreading
large amounts of lime. His brochure adds that the soil should not contain
more than 40 percent of clay, sand, loam or rock. The trees must be densely
planted to produce an abundant root system. Weeding the orchard is
important.

Not all filbert trees, which take six years to mature, bear black diamonds.
But on average, by Garland's estimate, one acre will yield 75 pounds per
year. And the filberts should live for 28 to 30 years with proper care.

There are other trade secrets that he prefers not to share, and for good
reason. Truffle farms are underway in Texas and Oregon.

"This business is becoming a lot more competitive," says Garland, who
planted a new 25-acre orchard last fall in Winston-Salem. Since 1998, he has
sold 60,000 inoculated filbert seedlings for as much as $20 each, with
thousands on order growing in his greenhouse in nearby Hillsborough.

Fresh local truffles may be turning up at farmers markets and at more
restaurants in the Washington area in the years ahead. Garland sold 1,000
filbert trees each to two farms in the Warrenton area but prefers not to
name the owners. A grain farmer in Charlottesville planted 1,300 inoculated
trees five years ago. But thus far, not a truffle has been found.

"We've put in a great investment with the trees, fencing and irrigation, and
we're getting a little concerned and frustrated," said the Charlottesville
farmer in a telephone interview. She preferred, for security reasons, that
her name and farm location not be disclosed. She said Franklin Garland "was
perfectly honest and forthright with us and made no guarantees."

Last year, the Garlands were awarded a $235,000 grant from the North
Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, a state program designed to assist
tobacco farmers by encouraging alternative crops. It's funded by a portion
of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement with tobacco manufacturers to settle
lawsuits over smoking-related illnesses and change the way tobacco products
are marketed. Fifty of the state's tobacco farmers will receive 200 trees
each as well as technical consultations.

"For us, tobacco has always been king. But we need new niches for farmers,
and this is a neat opportunity," says the tobacco trust fund's executive
director, William Upchurch. "We don't think it's any magic bullet to help
our farmers who have tried and failed with, say, pick-your-own strawberries
or herbs. But this is unique."

Garland says that launching the project has been a challenge.

"The idea is to make this the truffle capital, like what Napa [California]
is to wine," says Garland, who enjoys an omelet every now and then filled
with sliced truffles sauteed in butter with sour cream and sherry. "But at
first [the farmers] ask how we can be growing candy. Then there is the
reluctance to grow a crop that's all underground."

Bob Passarelli, co-owner of the field just outside Rolesville where Ginger
found the truffle during Gray's visit, has high expectations for his
orchard. But he had a tinge of skepticism at the get-go.

"Until I saw my first truffle, I thought it was a scam," says Passarelli, a
chef and food consultant in Raleigh. Now he is a believer. Says Passarelli:
"This is going to be the savior of the North Carolina family farm. Yes,
indeed."


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