Word: rigord
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...foie gras ballotine and quail egg with truffle mayo are exquisite teasers to the local-fare feast of up to eight courses. Standouts include creamed crab, potato and tomato mille-feuilles with lime crème fraiche; roast free-range chicken, tarragon mousseline, creamed leeks and black Périgord truffle; and homemade petits fours. From the dining room it's a contented crawl to your cozy en-suite room upstairs or, if you're lodging in the sumptuous split-level cottages up the slope, it's an effortful short stroll. Higher still is the outdoor hot tub - talk about...
Most nights, armed men stomp through the Périgord-Limousin Regional Park in southwestern France with orders Vignette StoryServer 5.0 Tue Jul 14 08:50:22 2009 to shoot ... frogs. But not just any amphibians. They're after Rana catesbeiana - the North American bullfrog - introduced to France in 1968 by a French aviator who liked the idea of the critters croaking in his garden. They're now an ecological menace. Weighing up to a kilo, these voracious predators gorge on crustaceans, fish, other frogs, salamanders and even the occasional bird. "It's capable of attacking anything it can swallow...
...earthy pungency. One taste, though, clears up any confusion. The Chinese variety is insipid when compared with the one found in France, Italy and Spain. Yet over the past few years, unscrupulous dealers in Europe and the U.S. have begun passing off the Chinese truffles as Umbrian or Périgord black diamonds. The deception has roiled the luxury-food industry, particularly as European harvests have dwindled. Last season, when a heat wave cut the Périgord bounty from the usual 50 tons to 9, the import of Chinese truffles skyrocketed to an estimated 30 tons, from 20 the year before...
...pride about the 40 to 50 tons of truffles that his team of 20,000 gatherers harvests for him each year. "They taste just as good as the French ones, with maybe a little less aroma," he contends--although he concedes that he's never actually tasted a Périgord truffle...
...European countryside and beat the fungi out of their more fragile cousins. Already the ancient truffle terroir is being hammered by pesticides and urbanization. Two centuries ago, French black truffles were so abundant that they were cheaper than tomatoes; since then, the average annual truffle harvest in the Périgord region and beyond has declined, from some 1,800 tons to a mere 50 tons. An influx of Chinese truffle spores could finish off an already threatened gastronomic tradition...