But The truffles from China are not the same fungus as those from France....where they have been using pigs to hunt them for lots and lots of years.
It seems that the real news is that the inferior Chinese truffles are now being sold as French truffles and as reported in the Times have a chemical odor and almost no flavor. The real message is to know your truffle dealer and if the price seems too good to be true, you can bet it isn't.
Yen? China?...Thought that was Japan?

Linda C

I have to put in a plug for my native state. Oregon truffles are receiving more and more acclaim. You don't have to import from France to enjoy truffles.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Oregon Truffles

With all the (to Western tastes) hideous things Chinese people eat, it is too funny to think they were feeding truffles to pigs...even if the truffles weren't very good.

I lived with a Chinese family for about 6 months when I was 17...in that time I sampled, pork ears, tripe, intestines and feet, fish eyeballs, stinky tofu (fermented bean curd),sea cucumber (sea slug), duck and chicken feet, fish maw (swim bladder), duck gizzards, thousand year egg (preserved in lime, the whites turn black and the yolks green), bird's nest (the nest is made from a bird's spit, believe it or not) and bitter melon (if you think dandelion or mustard greens are bitter, you ain't seen nothin' yet!)

Well, well...I suppose it's what you're used to.

I just find it very funny that the Chinese fed truffles to their pigs. That was all.

I am not saying that their truffles are the same as the French truffles. I also want to point out that it does not seem to me that they are selling fake truffles; they only export to distributors, who are not Chinese.

I think tastes can be acquired or cultural. I have not tasted Chinese truffles, so I cannot say if they taste inferior of just different. There is perhaps some French snobbishness involved in the general comparison. The same NYT article also says:
"--Joe Doria, an owner of Grace's Marketplace, said -----. "They're good and they're cheaper," ------------."
"---Chris Pappas, an owner of Dairyland, a cheese and delicacy wholesaler in the South Bronx, ----. "They taste wonderful," Mr. Pappas said. "It's an economical way for a restaurant to put black truffle on the menu."

I loved it the time I saw a documentary in which many people could not tell the difference between Two Buck Chuck and Opus One.

Yes, Oregon produces some fine truffles. I was also looking into growing truffles here in the US.

Yen, is Japanese, which was derived from Chinese, in Chinese it is also pronounced Yuan, or depending on which dialect.

dcarch

Rachellen, your email thru gardenweb does not work.

Beverly