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2005-03-24 Africa: Subsaharan

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Posted by Steve White 2005-03-24 00:00:00|| || Front Page|| [11127 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I still have a video of the French forces murdering the protesting civilans. Nobody has clean hands there. They all all covered in Chocolate and Oil both key Ivory Coast products to the French.

Posted by 3dc 2005-03-24 2:55:30 AM|| 2005-03-24 2:55:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Chocolate is pretty key to me, too. Although I must say that I prefer the Belgian version to the French. The wonderful Mr. Wife brought back two boxes of Neuhaus truffels to celebrate T.Daughter #2's bat mitzvah with. I'll have you notice my nobility: we'll have waited a full fortnight to touch them!

Posted by trailing wife 2005-03-24 6:55:06 AM|| 2005-03-24 6:55:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 How could the situation be "spinning out of control" if the French are there? (/sarcasm)

Posted by Spot 2005-03-24 8:36:38 AM|| 2005-03-24 8:36:38 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Such restraint,TW,is truly inspireing.
By the way,something I've always wondered.Isn't a Truffle a mushroom?
If so,the thought of eating a choclate covered mushroom is un-appealing.

Posted by Raptor 2005-03-24 9:06:59 AM|| 2005-03-24 9:06:59 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 3dc,

Video, saved it too...French pols: They do a breathtaking hypocrisy like no one else.

Posted by R 2005-03-24 9:22:00 AM|| 2005-03-24 9:22:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 There are truffles and truffles, Raptor.

One is a supposedly divinely flavoured mushroom, generally hunted with pigs or dogs in French forests, although they have become much rarer than heretofore, and may well be threatened with extinction if current trends continue. I think they are often found on the roots of beech trees -- or perhaps it's oaks -- but nobody has been able to successfully grow them in captivity.

The other is an equally divine -- or to some, even more so -- filled or hand-dipped chocolate. The Belgians are particularly known for their cream-based truffles, and those flavoured with liqueurs. They are made with such rich ingredients that they have a very short shelf life, even when refrigerated, and the cheat sheet included with the standard collections has specific eating instructions that in German begin, "Sit quietly in a comfortable chair in a 72F room..." :-)

Posted by trailing wife 2005-03-24 10:59:51 AM|| 2005-03-24 10:59:51 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 First excuse the ad. I have nothing to do with these folks and their products. Just pointing out that the cultured American product is much much cheaper and chefs have trouble telling it from the French/Italian products.

I beg to differ:
www. oregonwhitetruffles.com
In 1878 Dr. H.W. Harkness first finds truffles in California. In 1899 he describes Tuber gibbosum Harkn. in a paper entitled, "California Hypogaeous Fungi", for the Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences. In the paper, he laments the paucity of truffles in California, saying they might be comparable to European varieties.

In 1983 at Linn-Benton Community College, the late James Beard samples Tuber gibbosum and other native truffles. He declares it "at least as good...as [Italian] whites".

In 1985 Daniel B. Wheeler joins the North American Truffling Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to learning more about truffle ecology, preservation, and edibility.

In 1985 he meets a tree farmer near Oregon City, and suggests trying to inoculate native truffles in a pure stand of existing trees. The first inoculation takes place in June, 1986.

Later that year, success: Geopora cooperi has been cultivated exactly where inoculated. A larger inoculation using Tuber species found on the property is suggested, and instigated in November, 1986.

By October, 1987, truffles are found under the inoculated trees. By 1988 the area is producing fewer truffles, but they are much larger.

Sample harvest indicate production of several hundred pounds per acre.

By 1995 over 30 forages on the property have been held by the North American Truffling Society, Clackamas County Farm Forestry Association, Oregon Mycological Society and others. On this 80 acre property, over 60 species of hypogeous fungi have been collected, including several new to science. Wheeler forms Oregon White Truffles, and begins selling cultivated native truffles.

In 1996 Wheeler starts a web page, providing truffles and truffle information to the world.

buy US truffles here

Ordering from Oregon White Truffles

No money down! Don't pay until after delivery. Payment not due until delivered.

Payment by money order or personal check OK.

Truffles are short lived and need to be refrigerated quickly after being received. No orders outside continental US, please.

Sorry, but we do not accept credit card orders.
Prices for all truffle varieties thru 9/30/05:

2 lbs. $590; 1.5 lbs. $445; 1 lb. $300; 8 ozl. $160; 4 oz. $80; 2 oz. $40. Prices for dried truffles are $30/ounce up to 3 ounces; $25/ounce 4 or more ounces. Dried truffle prices have a $10 Priority Mail/handling charge per order.

Minimum order 2 ounces any one species fresh; _OR_ 1 ounce any one species dried.

Express Mail order of 4 ounces to 1 pound is $17.85 plus $10 handling; Express Mail for 2 oz. is $13.65 plus $10 handling.
Orders filled on first ordered, first filled basis.

Notice how much cheaper they are from the expensive French offical truffles and experts have a hard time telling the taste difference.
Photos

also Trufflezone

Posted by 3dc 2005-03-24 4:28:31 PM|| 2005-03-24 4:28:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Where's me pig!

Posted by Half 2005-03-24 5:18:26 PM|| 2005-03-24 5:18:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Half, you can borrow mine.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2005-03-24 5:19:30 PM|| 2005-03-24 5:19:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Excellent! Liz looks to be a good nose hog.

Posted by Half 2005-03-24 5:27:10 PM|| 2005-03-24 5:27:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday said that the situation in Ivory Coast was in danger of spinning âout of controlâ if militias in the divided African nation are not controlled.

Well, being as how Goo-fi can't offer up much in the way of a credible threat to meet such a development with anything resembling overwhelming force, why is he even bothering to comment?

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-03-24 9:58:00 PM|| 2005-03-24 9:58:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Wow! Thanks lots, 3dc - I've saved the site for future reference (I've friends who are serious cooks, unlike me). Good to know that the issue is only local extinction in France due to overhunting. After a while, Wheeler can generously offer to re-introduce the species from pure stock preserved in Oregon, along the lines of the French wine grape vines preserved in Chile after the French vineyards were destroyed by that fungus, I think at the turn of the last century. Schadenfreude is a terrible thing, but in this case a low-cost pleasure.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-03-24 10:00:38 PM|| 2005-03-24 10:00:38 PM|| Front Page Top

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