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We all know that José Andrés is one of the best ambassadors of Spain, especially in everything that has to do with gastronomy. Whenever he can, he takes the opportunity to praise our traditions, typical products and recipes. On this occasion, he has used his podcast Longer Tables to claim our country as one of the main producers of black truffle.
In a talk with Rowan Jacobsen, an American food journalist, they discussed where black truffles really come from, since many people think that it is a food that comes from France. As Jacobsen himself explained, there are many who associate black truffles with France, because French gastronomy made them their own. And when you go to the small markets of this country and buy this food, “most of these black truffles actually come from Spain”, he revealed.
“It is one of the greatest secrets of the truffle industry,” adds José Andrés. The Spanish region where this type of truffle is most produced is in Teruel, an area that was becoming depopulated due to the rural exodus of young people. Farmers and the government decided to collaborate to create huge truffle farms in the area, as the Asturian explains. And production has been so successful that the French come to Teruel to buy these truffles but, “as soon as they arrive in France, they are immediately granted citizenship,” they joke during the podcast.
Truffle oil, another topic
During the extensive and interesting talk between José Andrés and Rowan Jacobsen, they also address the issue of the use of truffle oil. In fact, José Andrés himself hopes that one should not “recommend anyone to buy truffle oil”. The reason they give is that basically this type of oil has no truffle in it.
“People don’t realize it’s a synthetic aroma, a chemical made in a lab. It’s one of hundreds of molecules found in the truffle, so they put it in a neutral oil and call it truffle oil. It has no truffle in it. And it fools people into thinking that’s what a truffle smells like. And it doesn’t smell that good, it smells cloying and kind of gross, so it turns people away from truffles,” Jacobsen explains. He concludes that if he could eliminate that kind of oil, he would certainly do so.