This is the second instalment of my truffle series. In the first instalment, I talked to Dion Range from Stonebarn Truffles in WA to hear all about truffle cultivation. In this episode, I talk to Annie Smithers from Du Fermier in Trentham. It is always an absolute delight to talk to Annie and as usual, she came out with some absolute pearls.
Conversation with a chef: Annie, tell me about your experience with truffles.
Annie Smithers: I have been up in the Macedon Ranges, Daylesford area for the last 30 years. It has been one of the areas where there have been quite a lot of truffles grown. For many years, I worked with a woman called Georgie Patterson, who actually trained truffle dogs. She had her own truffle trees, but that wasn't the main reason that she existed. Her existence was based more around the dogs. She would go off and look for truffles and she would turn up at my kitchen door with black truffles and say, would you like them? And I would pop them on the menu and just use them with largesse, and think I was very lucky.
Then last year I met a wonderful man called Peter, and he has a property where he planted Italian stone pines. He is growing the white truffles, the bianchetto truffles that are famous in Italian cuisine, and he uses his pet pug to find them. He has a pug called Jose. I went up there with with Jonathan Green, who I do radio with. And we had a wonderful tour of the stone pines with Jose leaping about and marking truffles all the while. And then he cooked us a beautiful lunch, and then I, through the truffle season, would get truffles from him every week, the white truffles and use those in the restaurant.
Beautiful. I just love this image of a pug finding truffles.
Oh. It's just beautiful. If you're on Instagram, his handle is @tartufo.white and you'll see pictures of the wonderful Jose on that.
I love it. When you're using the truffles, what would be the difference in flavour between the black truffles and the white?
I find that the white ones are much more aromatic. The black ones have quite different flavours. It's hard to describe because the essence of their flavour to me is that earthy fungal smell and taste about them. And I suppose it's hard for me to just without them in front of me to define why they're different. Perhaps it's like describing a red wine from one part of Burgundy to the other part. They're both of the same grape varieties, but they're completely different because of the terroir that they're grown in I think that truffles fall into that magical place in the universe where there is no sameness there. They are all different on any given day, whether they're the white ones, the black ones, what sort of dirt they've been grown in, what sort of atmospheric conditions have been there. They, they are just truffle and you expect the unexpected.
I was speaking to Julian Hills at Navi, and he likes to showcase all the different regions growing truffles for that reason, the terroir. I find that quite fascinating. How would you use the truffles in your menu on your dishes?
At Du Fermier, I cook generally French farmhouse style of food. But over the 11 years here, I've recognised that peasant food is peasant food, and whether it's French farmhouse food or Italian farmhouse food, or Ukrainian farmhouse food, the narrative is the same. It's about using what you have that's cooked with respect and traditional techniques. And I think that if we're talking about European food, there are cooking techniques that become part and parcel of every generation and they are handed down. So if I'm using the white truffles, I will often break out some duck egg pasta, do a very simple pasta with reggiano and a shaved truffle. Someone reminded me a couple of weekends ago, I did a duck ragu with some duck egg pasta and the white truffle.
And that was absolutely delicious. Truffles are great friends with eggs. So whether it be a black truffle or a white truffle, a double baked comte souffle, augmented with truffle is a very fine thing.
If we are talking about truffles, we are actually originally talking about a farmer who has a pig that finds this wondrous thing, and he takes it home and they cook it in the simplest, most beautiful way, because it is special, it is a surprise, it’s a luxury. It is something they don’t have every day and the flavour resonates the beauty of its seasonality and it’s surprise factor. You know, look what the pig found, darling. Look at this beautiful thing. Do we have any rice? Should we make some pasta? Oh, we’ve got a pot roasted chicken. Let’s just grate it over the top. That’s what we’re losing in this day of farming everything and pushing the limits and transporting everything everywhere. We forget about the man out with his pig. ~ Annie Smithers, Du Fermier
Delicious. What are your feelings about summer truffles? For me, truffles are very wintery because they go with all the cozy dishes. But then over the course of this research, talking to different people, I found out that WA exports a lot of truffles to other countries, like Europe, in their off season, and they call them summer truffles, and they use them in different ways. Is it bit of a juxtaposition to seasonality?
That's a very long ethical conversation. That's one of my soapbox conversations. For me, it's about the flagrant commodification of food and this desperate want that, and perhaps it's the malaise of the middle class, I don't know, but anything that is considered a luxury item suddenly needs to be, well, not suddenly, but there is this sense that it needs to be available and enjoyed all the time by as many people as possible, which takes the luxury out of it. So, for me, yes, I find it a juxtaposition. Look, if the French want to have truffles 12 months of the year, thats up to them. If that's what they want to do. If people want to do that, that's their choice. For me, I want to eat asparagus in spring. I want eat chestnuts in late autumn. I want to eat quinces in autumn. I want to eat truffles in winter. I personally do not feel the need to have these luxurious items that are absolutely seasonal. I want to wonder at them in their season and all the things that attend them in their season, as you say, truffles seem to go with the wintery comfort, beautiful things. And also be true to that sort of thing of if we are talking about truffles, we are actually originally talking about a farmer who has a pig that finds this wondrous thing, and he takes it home and they cook it in the simplest, most beautiful way, because it is special, it is a surprise, it's a luxury. It is something they don't have every day and the flavour resonates the beauty of its seasonality and it's surprise factor. You know, look what the pig found, darling. Look at this beautiful thing. Do we have any rice? Should we make some pasta? Oh, we've got a pot roasted chicken. Let's just grate it over the top. That's what we're losing in this day of farming everything and pushing the limits and transporting everything everywhere. We forget about the man out with his pig.
Absolutely. That's perfect. I love that. Thank you.
Du Fermier, 42 High Street, Trentham