"Cherche la truffe"

Searching for truffles in the Loire

We stand at the top of the hill, looking out over the valley towards Chinon. In front of us are hundreds of small oak trees, both white oaks and green, hornbeams and linden trees dotted in between. They grow in neat alleys or are laid out in grids, each one the keeper of its own secret crop.

We’re wrapped in thick coats, woolly jumpers, hats and gloves, a keen November wind blows across the hills, cutting through our layers, making us shiver. But we don’t mind, the sun is shining and we’re here to search the earth for truffles.

When you think of French truffles you probably imagine an old farmer in the Périgord, a stick in hand, a pig snuffling at his heels, searching through the damp soil for a winter harvest of black truffles. But while the Périgord and Apt departments are the most well known for truffles, Touraine in the Loire Valley is catching up, with more than 400 hectares of truffle fields and 170 truffle growers.

Leading the revolution is Serge, a tall, elegant, but solidly built Frenchman with beautifully floppy grey hair swept across his forehead. He used to work in fashion in Paris, but now he’s wandering through the countryside with us, telling us all about the science, or alchemy, of truffles.