Black Truffle

Appearance

The round, dark brown fruiting bodies have a black-brown skin with small pyramidal cusps. They have a strong, aromatic smell and normally reach a size of up to 10 centimetres. Some may be significantly larger, such as a black truffle found in 2012 in Dordogne with a mass of 1.277 kilograms.

Their flesh is initially white, then dark. It is permeated by white veins, which turn brown with age. The spores are elliptical and measure about 22–55 μm by 20–35 μm. They are dark brown and covered with large spikes.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the fruiting bodies develop from April to June and are harvested from November to March.

Until 2010, all truffle species were thought to be homothallic, that is, capable of sexual reproduction from a single organism. Subsequent research indicated that black truffles are heterothallic; that is, sexual reproduction requires contact between the mycelia of different mating types. If mycelia of different mating types surround a tree, eventually, one type becomes predominant.

Naming

The black truffle is morphologically very similar to the commercially less valuable Chinese truffle. To avoid fraud or misidentifications in commerce, a RFLP genetic test has been developed to distinguish the two species. Externally, they can be distinguished by their skin, which is smoother and dark red or dark brown in the Chinese truffle. Two other similar truffle species are the summer truffle and the winter truffle, whose flesh is of a lighter color.

Habitat

The natural habitat of the black truffle includes various regions in Spain, France, Italy, and Croatia. These are presumably the areas where the host plants found refuge during the last Ice Age. In these areas, the search for black truffles and their cultivation is a tradition going back more than 200 years. Truffles are still collected manually in a traditional way in large areas of natural forests. For example, the county of Alto Maestrazgo has an ideal ground with suitable conditions for cultivating truffles. Albocàsser, Atzaneta, Culla, and Morella are just some of the villages in this region where one can find black truffles in large amounts.

Climate change has increasingly affected this form of recollection, and since 2010, a significant drop in productivity has occurred in naturally producing forests.

Reproduction

Boars and the larvae of the truffle fly, which eat the fruiting bodies, aid in the distribution of the species by excreting the indigestible spores. Their excrement likely also serves to fertilize the spores. Black truffles are sometimes found together with winter truffles, which aid the growth of black truffles in wet soils.

Uses

With a price of about 1,000 to 2,000 euros per kilogram, black truffles are the second-most expensive truffles after white truffles and one of the most sought-after edible mushrooms in the world.

In cooking, black truffles are used to refine the taste of meat, fish, soups, cheeses, and risotto. Unlike white truffles, the aroma of black truffles does not diminish when they are heated but becomes more intense. They are most commonly shaved into or on top of a dish raw or infused with high-quality olive oil or butter.