In one memorable episode of the long-running but now discontinued ABC food program The Cook and The Chef, Maggie Beer sniffed ecstatically at an Australian black truffle before proffering it to co-host Simon Bryant. The chuckling Bryant told her it smelled like rich people.
Historically, truffles appeared on the plates of the posh and peasants alike. The stuff of legend, awe and luxury, truffles were denounced as the devil's food and adored as an aphrodisiac, all while remaining the gleaner's ultimate treat. More recently, war and global warming have seen European production fall dramatically, adding rarity to the truffle's considerable cachet.
But in Australia, the truffle has been typecast as an indulgence of the wealthy. Somehow, Australian food culture has reduced the truffle, a complex cultural icon with the ability to cross class boundaries, to little more than a rich man's treat.
It would be easy to blame economics — to say that the cost of supply dictates a price that only the wealthy can afford. But this explanation ignores the undertow of Euro-centric pretention that drags at Australian food culture.
Centuries of human appreciation, reverence — even love — have given the truffle a complex history. In France, Spain and Italy, the truffle grows wild — the least pretentious starting point imaginable. It hides beneath the soil, waiting to be unearthed by the Trifulau's dogs or, less often, pigs.
Appropriately, black and white truffles are listed alongside saffron milk caps in Patience Gray's Honey from a Weed, which explores Mediterranean wild food culture through anecdotes and recipes.
At the other end of the spectrum, Antonin Carême, chef to George IV, the Romanovs and Napoleon, lists in his collection a recipe for Salmon à La Rothschild, circa 1825, in which one pound of sliced black truffles are arranged over a whole salmon in a velvety replication of scales.
There is, of course, a middle ground for truffle enjoyment. Edouard de Pomiane's 1930s recipe for poached eggs directed his housewifely readership to 'add salt and pepper and the truffles cut into slices'. And his truffles were tinned.
It seems odd to think of the truffle as everyman's indulgence, for here in Australia, truffles divide, rather than unite, the dining public. Stepping off the escalator into Melbourne's David Jones food hall at the right time of year, shoppers may be confronted by enormous air-freighted truffles in their own glass case — a presentation that implies the price (up to $3500