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Diamonds on the soles of my Blundstones.
It has been truffle week in the food publications. Matthew
Evans had a cover story in the SMH Good Living called
Black Gold Mine and in The Canberra Times Food and Wine
section, editor Kirsten Lawson did a Black Gold Canberra
region truffle story (it's not online but her earlier
foie gras story is).
I've
been watching that local success story for a year or two so
it pushed me to write and photograph some more. See this
Photodiary on
collecting truffles in our mmMultimedia section. And there's an
Australian truffle feature in an earlier
web-only edition we did
here.>
As well, I've been moved to write something longer and
hopefully provoking. What I know about truffles is from eating
them. Add to that some research and now, talking with local
chefs and growers I've developed a different perspective to
our local industry.
I argue we won't develop extensive sales of truffles in
Australia, or see them used widely in any regional cuisine
especially in the regions that grow them, until they're
cheaper. I believe that the 'truffles as black gold' analogy
is actually more like diamonds. Diamonds have a tightly
controlled market where only a small amount are allowed to
be sold because it would drive the price down. Applying that
to a product that will rot doesn't work for me. It's
wonderful that we have them, but we need a local market
price. Not immediately, but within the next five years.
If you'd like to follow my argument
further, see my rant
Truffles want to be free>.
Fred Harden 21 July2008
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