32. A Hallelujah Chorus of Truffles

December 22, 2021

16 members of our truffle chorus:  Apple-Black Pepper, Arabie (Date paste), Coco-Banana, Coffee, Cranberry,  Curry-Raisin,  Chipotle, Ginger,  Marzipan, Noisette, Orange-Vanilla, Pine-nut,  Vanilla, Whiskey.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:33

That was Chopin's first prelude, which I learned way back in the mid-60s with my new and wonderful piano teacher, Miss Genevieve Truerin, one of the finest teachers of any subject that I had in high school or in college. She has long since passed, but I will forever love her as a student loves a truly remarkable teacher. Welcome to Podcast 33 entitled African Truffles and the Hallelujah Chorus. I hope you enjoy it. Here we go. My wife Eve and I are temporarily living in a four-story house called the Tour de Bahre. Tour because the house is narrow and high like a tower, and to go from floor to floor, you have to ascend steep slippery stairs, modified ladders of sorts. Bahi, because it was called because in the 19th century, this part of Cord, located along the fifth defensive wall of the fortified city built in 1229, was populated by Spaniards, and in Spanish, a neighborhood is called a barrio. Bahi is just a short version of that, and it's a Spanish word connected to Cord in more than one way. The name of our town, Kord, is itself Spanish, as Cord was probably named after Cordoba, the Andalusian city, which was still an important intellectual and commercial center in the 13th century when Kord was founded. And the language spoken when the town of Cord was founded in France was called Occitan, which resembles the Spanish language Catalan. Today is December 5th, and we are fast approaching Christmas. Our children are widely dispersed, three in the Bay Area of California, one in New York, and one in Rome. We aren't going anywhere for the holidays because of COVID, but we are having single unattached American friends over for Christmas dinner. It's easy to feel lonely this time of year, partly because of the weather. For four weeks, we've had rain almost every single day, excepting the days that it snowed or fleeted. Last week, most stores in Court were closed. Tourism, which normally moves at a fast clip in early December, is virtually dead again because of COVID. Yesterday, by mayoral decree, it was satisfied as a day of commerce, but there were no customers. I took advantage of the Darth of customers to step to stop by a newly opened AP 20 fiend located in Bakor at the bottom of the hill, which was the beginning of the medieval bastide or fortified city. I brought samples of the African truffles that I am now manufacturing on Mondays and Tuesdays with Damien, a young enthusiastic Frenchman. The owner of the store is himself young and enthusiastic. He is very interested in carrying our product. Next week I will bring him assortments of our fabulous African truff aka truffe africain. I call them African because the chocolate is made in the village of Depa, Côte d'Ivoire, by people who grow cocoa beans for a living. I taught them how to make the chocolate years ago. The truff come in four-piece, nine-piece, and sixteen-piece assortments, packed in handsome boxes that are shiny gold on the inside and deep chocolate burgundy on the outside. They have clear acetate covers, so the textures of the 16 different flavors are apparent. Our truffles celebrate the world and its peoples. With the exception of one, all the truffles are made with ganache centers. Ganache is a cream made of mixing 40% hot heavy cream with 60% dark chocolate. The word apparently comes from the old French verb ganache, which means to slog through mud. And ganache is just that, mud, except it's eminently edible. And unlike Cleopatra, I wouldn't waste it by slogging through it. I would eat it. I pour the ganache cream into a silicon rubber mold to form spheres that are frozen, popped out, and rolled in an initial layer of chocolate. They are then allowed to come to temperature and given a second coating of bittersweet, followed by a finishing touch. With some of the truffles, I insert flavorful centers into the molten ganache. So the identity of truffle is a partly a function of what is sprinkled on top or rolled on the outside and partly what has been inserted into the molten ganache. While crows congregate in murders and quails in cubbies, our truffles form a choir. Why? Because their flavors sing out. And one of the most exciting members of our truffle choir is apple black pepper. To make it, I slip a cube of candied apple into the molten ganache. To make these candied apple cubes, I peel apples, usually a firm flavorful variety, then cook them in 50% sugar syrup until they reach the thread stage, at which point the apple becomes gelatinous and firm. I freeze them in their ganache spheres, then pop them out and roll them in a preliminary layer of bittersweet chocolate. As mentioned, I allow them to come to ambient temperature, and then I roll them in a second layer of dark chocolate and top each sphere with a healthy pinch of cracked black pepper. This truffle adds to the truffle chorus a range of sugary, fruity, and peppery notes. The second truffle in our chorus is arabia or arabi. This is the only member of the truffle choir whose center is not a ganache. Instead, it is made of pure date paste, rolled in our excellent 70% bittersweet chocolate twice, then set in a dish of toasted sesame seeds, which are native to Africa and are highly prized throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Third in our truffle chorus are cocoa banana truffles, developed in memory of the geographic origins of the world's commercially most important fruit, cacao, which owes its parenthood to the Amazonian River basin. The combination of dried coconut and dried banana celebrates that parenthood. Once again, I drop liquid ganache into the silicone mold, then I insert a cube of dried Bolivian banana. Once the sphere has hardened, I roll it in a preliminary layer of chocolate, let it come to temperature, and then re-roll in another layer of bittersweet, followed by tossing it in toasted coconut. This truffle is 100% tropical, and because of its fruity high notes, I, as truffle choir master, choose to place it among the sopranos. Directly across the world, which is itself an enormous spherical truffle, we meet the fourth member of our chorus, coffee, whose deep voice makes it an important member of the bass section of our choir. Coffee also originated in Arabia. In fact, in Yemen, which is the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, this truffly baritone has a creamy coffee center obtained by filling the mold with ganache and then piping into its center coffee buttercream, the same lovely stuff that makes a French coffee buttercream cake so thoroughly yummy. Once frozen, I give the customary first layer of chocolate, followed by the second layer, and then a finish with ground roasted coffee. The chocolate ganache acts something somewhat as a bagpipes drone, producing a chocolate low C, and then the coffee buttercream and the ground roasted coffee function as the two chanter reeds, braying their reedy voices against the deep chocolate base. We fly back across the world to northeastern North America where we encounter the cranberry. This tart fruit grows in bogs located behind the dunes that rim sandy beaches along the eastern seaboard. The fruit's vitamin C content makes this fifth truffle choir member a member of the alto section of our fruity chorus. Into the customary ganache, I insert a whole dried cranberry. After hardening, I roll the truffle into the two layers of in the two layers of bittersweet. But instead of putting something on the outside, I cover the truffle in a gorgeous piece of fuchsia-colored aluminum foil. Every self-respecting assortment of chocolates must have at least one foil covered member to stand out and glint brightly. Again, we crossed the world to the land of curry. The many spicy blends used in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent date back at least 5,000 years, according to analysis of ancient mortars and pestles and human skeletons. This particular truffle, our sixth member of the choir, is going to be in the tenor section. That's because its spicy voices make it as rich as any tenor, like Placido Domingo or Mario Lanza. It has a raisiny core that adds sweetly fruity notes. I drop the chocolate enrobed curry raisin truffle into a bed of curry powder, giving this truffle a bright yellow exterior. And now we zip back across the globe to Mexico, home to one of the world's greatest and most complex cuisines. At the heart of Mexican cuisine is the chili pepper, which has been married repeatedly to chocolate for thousands of years. This truffle has a solid ganache core, no inclusions, but it gets a wildly spicy ride on your palate because it is dropped into chipotle powder made by smoking ancho chilies and grinding them. This truffle has a smokiness with lots of high notes as well as low notes. I would make it a mezzo soprano, as mesos have smoky voices. That's our seventh choir member. Ginger is a root belonging to the medicinal root family known as zingiboraceae, whose roots are rich in the spicy chemical known as zingibirone. Surprisingly, the three top ginger consuming countries of the world are Nepal, Nigeria, and Cameroon. Who would have thunk? I would have guessed Japan, as I'm an inveterate ginger wasabi and raw fish eater. But no. Anyway, this truffle has a candy ginger core surrounded by lovely ganache. I'm going to put her among the sopranos, and I'll tell you she's like a Broadway diva, belting it out a la Barbara Streisand. Number eight. Number nine is Marzipan. Of Arabic origin, made of the almond, almond, and saccar, or sugar, marzipan or march bread, probably hails from Toledo, Spain, where before the Reconquista and Christianization of the Spanish peninsula, the three great Abrahamic religions had coexisted in harmony. And Marzipan is a sweet memory of the Halcyon times of Andalusian coexistence. We have buried this marzipon memory at the very center of our truffle, and then we coat the center with the requisite two layers of bittersweet followed by toasted almond flour. I'm assigning our marzipan truffle to the tenor section because while the chocolate notes are low, almond is without question a tenor. Our tenth member, a true hallelujah addition to our chorus, is noisette or hazelnut. This single truffle alone is a miniature choir. Into each ganache sphere, I insert a toasted hazelnut plus a hefty squirt of janduilla, one of Italy's greatest culinary contributions. Made of brown hazelnuts mixed with milk chocolate, some of our listeners may know it under the brand name Nutella, the jiffy of jonduias. I use a quality janduya, however, not one thickened either by hydrogenated vegetable oil or palm oil. I roll these truffles in bittersweet and then in praline powder, a mixture of toasted almond, toasted hazelnut, and ground caramel. Praline is said to have originated when King Louis XIV sent a delegation to Bordeaux to seek peace with the local potentates, and he did this by having his chef invent a confection for the occasion, toasted almonds in Robedon Caramel, Praline Diplomacy. The noisette truffle is another tenor. Clearly, our chorus is being taken over by Pavarades. Choir number 11 is the orange vanilla truffle, a flavor combination that is said to have originated in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. This truffle is truly rich in high notes, so it joins the soprano section. The heart of the confection is candied orange peel, which I make by cutting off the zest and albedo of the orange. Boil it first in water, then progressively add sugar and cook for four straight hours until most of the sugar has been absorbed into the orange peel cells. I drop a hunk of candied peel into each sphere of molten ganache. After enrobing with the customary two coats of bittersweet chocolate, I drop the sphere into vanilla sugar made with a mixture of vanilla powder and organic unrefined sugar. So when you bite into this, the inside is the creamy ganache surrounding the gel-like candied orange peel. Then you hit the crunchy vanilla sugar cage, an orchestra of textures and flavors. Peanut is an alto in our next uh truffle. I start by filling the mold halfway with ganache, then squirt in peanut butter followed by several pieces of roasted peanut. After the customary freezing, the balls are coated in bittersweet and then rolled in chopped peanuts. The notes of this truffle are almost as high as soprano, so I'll put them in among the altos. And like so many altos, the truffle is quite nutty. Peanut flavors are quite dominant in this truffle. The peanut is African in origin, so this truffle is one more member from the African continent. The pine nut truffle is choir member 13. Pine nuts were important parts of Northwestern Native American diet. They're also important parts of Greek cuisine as they marry very well with roasted red peppers and feta cheese and oregano. Because most of this truffle is dark chocolate, I'm putting Mr. Pine nut with the other bases. Since the founding of the EU, the Belgian cookie speculos has taken Europe by culinary storm. The story begins with the Dutch and the Belgians controlling the world's spice trade for a couple centuries, and they came up with all sorts of dishes using spices like baked ham with a jillion cloves, gouda or gouda with uh houda with a jillion cloves, and more recently, speculose cookies with a jillion, well, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, and anise. This truffle has a mod a very spicy buttercream center, and the whole is rolled in crushed speculos crumbs. In essence, what we have is another truffle hallelujah chorus, or maybe this one's the Heroica Symphony. Every group has to have a show off, and this one's it. Member number 14. Surely another mezzosoprano. Number 15 is the diplomat of the lot, vanilla. Doesn't stick out and compliments everybody, also clump compliments everybody. Vanilla comes from an orchid vine, and the center of the long bean contains thousands of teeny seeds surrounded by a gel-like substance with over 100 different flavors, all of them bewitching. Mexico used to be the vanilla queen, but then they discovered how much Los Norteños, that is, the people living up north of them, love hanging out in hotels being waited on hand and foot. So the world's vanilla production shifted to Madagascar, the Reunion Islands, and Indonesia. Vanilla could be a soprano, alto, tenno, or bass. He or she gets along with everybody and fills in where voices are lacking. And last and surely not least is whiskey. This is a solid ganach truffle, but it's enrobed in cocoa nibs. Just what is this creature, you might ask? Cocoa beans, once fermented and dried, are mere cracklings of their former selves. They still have their shelly exteriors, but inside they're all cut off. This is because fermentation causes the loss of proteins and carbohydrates, leading to fissures throughout. Then when the cocoa bean is roasted and cracked, it falls apart into nibs and shell material. Winnowing, which is the process of vibrating under vacuum, causes the nibs to jump around and the shell material, which is 20% by weight of the bean, is sucked away, leaving the nibs. In this, our 16th truffle, I take the nibs and boil them in straight Jack Daniels with added sugar. As the liquor boils off, the whiskey flavor migrates into the nibs, as do the sugar molecules. Once the liquid exceeds 80% sugar, it crystallizes all over the nibs, forming candied whiskey-flavored nibs. And it's these marvelous particles that add the crunchiness and a warm raisiny bourbon whiskey note that surely makes this truffle a baritone. And so that's the end of our 16 truffle choir. As you can see, it combines culinary and musical art. To best appreciate truffles, I highly recommend sipping a shot of cognac while listening to Chopin Preludes. Between 24 preludes, 16 truffles, and a couple shots of cognac, you will experience every emotion known to man.