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 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
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 Festival planned for truffle aficionados [OR] 
#5020711 - 12/05/05 09:38 PM (6 years, 2 months ago) |
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Festival planned for truffle aficionados
December 5, 2005 - registerguard.com
Charles Lefevre wants to share an Oregon treasure with the rest of the world.
Lefevre, president of the North American Truffling Society, is hoping to raise the profile of Oregon truffles with a three-day Eugene-Springfield festival scheduled for late January.
"Oregon is blessed with an abundance of wild, native truffles," says Lefevre, who has a Ph.D. in mycology, the field of botany dealing with fungi.
The event will bring together cultivators, foragers, chefs and gourmands from throughout the Northwest and around the country to celebrate the earthy delicacy. Lefevre even expects a small European contingent.
"Part of what we're hoping to accomplish is to promote a lot of what Oregon is and what Oregon produces," he says.
Lefevre calls Oregon truffles an unrecognized delicacy. Like mushrooms, truffles are the fruit of a fungus. They grow underground and rely on trees to host them and animals eating them to distribute their spores. Oregon white and Oregon black truffles thrive in Lane County and can be found in Eugene, often on private land, Lefevre says. Many Oregon truffles grow near the roots of Douglas fir trees.
"Oregon is probably the very best of all places to try to grow truffles," says Lefevre, who also cultivates truffles on hazelnut and oak trees.
Like truffles themselves, which can sell for more than $1,000 per pound wholesale, attendance to the Oregon Truffle Festival will not come cheap. Packages start at $395 and go up to $895. A more affordable "marketplace" event will give the public a chance to sample and learn about Oregon truffles, publicist Steve Remington says.
"This is a product of the Oregon forest that is accessible to everyone," Remington says.
The Oregon Truffle Festival will feature workshops on truffle cultivation, truffle dog training and truffle hunting, among other topics. A number of local restaurants will offer truffle dinners, and there will be a grand truffle dinner featuring the talents of big-,name chefs from throughout the region including Philippe Boulot, executive chef of Portland's Heathman Hotel; and Rocky Maselli, executive chef of Eugene's March<142>.
"(The goal) is to just bring awareness to another great food product that Oregon has that other parts of the country don't have," says March<142>'s founding chef and owner Stephanie Pearl Kimmel.
In the past, Pearl Kimmel says, Oregon truffles had a reputation for inconsistency. Immature truffles were sometimes harvested and the quality varied widely. But, as foragers and chefs have become more educated and adept at choosing ripe truffles, and as the wild mushroom industry has grown, the quality of Oregon truffles has improved.
"Awareness of the treasure we have has been slowly evolving," she says.
Oregon is the country's largest source of truffles, Lefevre says. The state's truffle industry, which is still in its infancy, lags behind France, Spain, Italy and other parts of Europe. Oregon's annual harvest is roughly 10 tons, compared with more than 100 tons for all of Europe, he says.
But if Oregon is far behind in volume, it is not far behind in quality, Lefevre says, and Oregon truffles sell for a small fraction of the price of their European cousins. While Italian white truffles can fetch close to $2,000 a pound wholesale, Oregon white truffles often sell for around $100 per pound wholesale.
"When (Oregon truffles) are at their top quality, they are absolutely on par with European truffles,"Lefevre says.
Lefevre began laying the groundwork for the Oregon Truffle Festival four years ago, when he started discussing his idea with his wife, Oregon Country Fair general manager Leslie Scott. Scott lent her expertise in event management and Lefevre provided his knowledge of truffles to organize the event. He says dozens of such festivals take place in Europe, including a massive gathering in Alba, Italy, which lasts for several weekends, and food events celebrating European truffles are commonplace in places such as New York City. But, Lefevre says, the Oregon Truffle Festival promises to be the only American festival of its kind.
"I would like to see this become an international attraction and I think it can," he says.
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