When this article was first conceived, I was on my way back to Shanghai in Yunnan. The team doing the Black Pearl Yearbook went to Yunnan to trace the ingredients, and I rubbed their itinerary to see the world.

One of the stops was to dig black truffles with local farmers.

On the first day in Kunming, I had dinner with local friends. On the table, there were the chef of the restaurant, the local coffee maker who runs the food business in Yunnan, and the Yunnan consultant who was "China on the tip of the tongue". Everyone drank wine and had a good talk. They all had different opinions on Yunnan and even the whole world, and they all expressed them directly.

when we talked about digging black truffles, they all advised us not to go, saying that we would be disappointed. Asking the reason is nothing more than dissatisfaction with the size and aroma of Yunnan black truffles.

I also brought a scrap: White truffles used in many high-end restaurants in first-tier cities are also made in Yunnan, and I told the guests that they are Italian. How many guests have eaten real Italian white truffles? How many Italian white truffles can enter China Customs? Isn't it just that domestic sales pretend to be imports and earn money with asymmetric information?

But people like us are leaders. The worse others say it, the more they want to feel it-how can we have a say without personal experience?

Just like some restaurants, when they see someone scolding them, they don't know whether they are right or not, so they pay for a meal by themselves. Only when they have first-hand materials can they be qualified to scold with others.

The place where black truffles are dug is a small village in Huize County, Qujing City. Starting from Huize County, driving for more than half an hour on the mountain road, the uncle villagers who took us to dig truffles have been waiting for a long time on the roadside.

leave the village road and walk a little into the mountains, and you'll get to the place where you can dig truffles. Uncle told us how to dig truffles: first, find a pine tree, dig up the soil next to it, and after seeing the thin stems, continue digging along the stems, and you will have a chance to dig truffles.

Uncle began to dig a few times, and gave me the rake, so that I could continue to dig. The harvest won't come so fast, but where we planed, the vegetation on the surface has been destroyed, and the soil with some roots has been turned out. We looked around and found that several plots of land were like this. Only then did we realize that digging truffles here actually caused quite serious damage to the land. As for whether it would damage the roots of pine trees, it is still unknown.

There was no harvest in the first place. Uncle took us up a small slope. He said that it was more likely to dig truffles here.

On a piece of land that just went uphill, the soil was completely exposed, and there was no trace of vegetation at all. A few steps further inside, you can clearly see that the land has been turned over, the grass has been rooted out, and some sporadic moss can be seen.

Uncle started to get into the state and dug truffles seriously. After a while, three small black truffles were dug up, with a diameter of three to five centimeters, wrapped in mud, which was not very impressive. At this time, almost five or six square meters of land were turned over.

I looked up the slope along the turned land. Above it was a pine forest, which still maintained a relatively primitive landform. In other words, the truffle digger will dig all the way up this hillside in the future, pick up the truffle and leave the land chewed by the rake. We don't know when these lands will be restored to their original appearance. People present first had a discussion, and then there was a brief silence.

Everyone knows that truffles are produced in Yunnan. But I don't know how many truffles are dug up like this in Yunnan.

Go to the town for lunch at noon, and bring the black truffles with you to make a local special dish-truffle chicken. A Yunnan chef in the same trade said that different from eating in western food, local people cut black truffles into thick slices to stew chicken soup.

The midday sun in Yunnan is very comfortable. I am in the courtyard of a restaurant, basking in the sun and watching the chef handle black truffles. I saw them pour black truffles into a basin of clear water, brush the soil with a brush quickly, cut it into thick pieces, and prepare to go down to chicken soup.

I took a look at the cut black truffles, some with texture and some without texture at all. Pick it up and smell it. There is almost no aroma. If you put a few pieces in your mouth and chew it, the aroma is still not obvious. You can only hope for the truffle chicken for a while.

several Yunnan farm dishes are grounded, and the local ingredients are interpreted in a simple way. When the truffle chicken was served, everyone's attention was drawn to it. After all, it was a legendary dish, and it was mentioned every day after this trip to Yunnan.

The taste of chicken soup is needless to say. The fresh flavor is higher than the feed chicken we eat in our city, and the chicken is slightly chewy. But a large number of black truffles in it didn't add any flavor to the whole dish, but just acted as vases silently. I think, even if you add a little potato to the chicken soup, the unique taste of the tuber can improve the whole dish, unlike the local black truffle, which can't contribute at all.

at this time, I thought of taking the black truffles to the proprietress when I first entered the restaurant. She took a look and said lightly, "Oh, it's Poria."

In the vocabulary of local people, there is no such thing as "truffles". Such things are called "Poria cocos".

"Poria cocos" is the abbreviation of "Smilax glabra", which is a very cheap thing at first glance, because there is a word "earth" and "Poria cocos" is a cheap Chinese herbal medicine.

Besides "Smilax glabra", black truffle has several other names in Yunnan population:

—— Because the smell attracts pigs, pigs will arch them out of the soil, so it is called "Inoculus suis", which is very rustic.

-because it is a mushroom growing out of thin air, it is called "fruitless", and it has a strange earthy taste.

-It is also called "stinky chicken fir" because the smell after full maturity is unpleasant, and it is still rustic.

However, this unpleasant smell of truffles is the unique fragrance of truffles, which fascinates countless westerners. More than a decade ago, this kind of food began to appear in high-end western restaurants in China, and now it is used to it. In recent years, truffles in Yunnan have suddenly emerged, from black truffles to white truffles, which has attracted everyone's discussion. Are Yunnan truffles truffles really truffles? Is it artificially cultivated?

Actually, the truffles in Yunnan are the same thing as those in Europe, and they are wild, but their fragrance is slightly inferior because of the local conditions. However, when Yunnan truffles are really mature, no matter the size, texture or aroma, they are still extraordinary things to be reckoned with.

(The word "truffle" was first translated as "truffle" by Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1976. Translated into a more romantic "truffle", there is no definite statement after the reform and opening up and after the 198s. I first saw the translation of "truffle" in the Chinese version of "About Taste" in 1998. Therefore, what Yunnan people think of as "Indian truffles" and what French people call "black spore truffles" are actually "truffles". )

It's a pity that in Yunnan, truffles have been dug from summer until winter. Although the season of Yunnan truffles is longer than that of Europe, truffles are pulled out one after another before they grow up, which leads to the fact that most Yunnan truffles are small, have no texture and, most importantly, lack of aroma.

Europeans dig truffles by using the sense of smell of pigs and hounds (hounds are basically used now), or by using sticks and other objects with experience, which belongs to fixed-point search. Although there are some experiences in digging truffles in Yunnan, the ultimate way is carpet search. As a result, it is not only difficult to produce mature truffles to establish a foothold in the market (good Yunnan truffles are mostly used as European truffles), but also damage the surface vegetation.

from digging truffles down the mountain to now, our group will feel lost whenever they talk about Yunnan truffles.

As people in the food and beverage industry, everyone has more or less respect for truffles, the world's top ingredient. It stands to reason that we should be proud to know that our country also produces truffles, but this time, we only have silence.

do you really want to dig the truffles in Yunnan like this?