Word: yunnan
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...locals of Hama village know what to do with a fat, smelly truffle. For centuries, if the village pigs in this remote corner of China's Yunnan province were acting a little less amorous than normal, the farmers fed a shovelful of truffles to the creatures in order to guarantee a future litter of piglets. Then, a few years ago, a strange tale wended its way through this hamlet so disconnected from modern China that Cultural Revolution slogans from three decades ago are still inscribed on the village's mud-brick walls: foreigners, for some mysterious reason, were willing...
...China, though, Wu sees nothing but mycological possibility. In the past year, he has begun exporting his own truffle oil and is starting a canned foie gras business using geese imported from Hungary. Now, he's attempting to duplicate the soil and precipitation conditions of southern France in his Yunnan fields. Just like France's INRA, Wu has done his own truffle-DNA testing, and he is determined to reverse-engineer an Eastern facsimile of a P?rigord. If he can create the correct environmental conditions, Wu believes Yunnan's plentiful land and low fixed costs will make him even more...
...collage by artist Olga de Amaral complement the priceless jade place settings that have been a fixture of the restaurant since it opened a discreet door in 1984. Chef Cheung Kam-chuen, the establishment's guiding light from the beginning, has also devised commemorative dishes, including the spectacular Yunnan ham and flowering chives in a black truffle glaze, and poached lobster and bird's nest in egg white. "Guests have become increasingly discerning over the past 20 years," says Cheung. Fortunately, the restaurant has kept pace with them, every step...
...Boasting one of the richest ecosystems on the planet, the lush, temperate mountains of northern Yunnan are, for two months of the year, home to maturing matsutake (known in Mandarin as songrong). When Japanese harvests were devastated by an insect-borne disease 15 years ago?a disaster from which the Japanese industry has yet to recover?these mountains became the world's matsutake hot spot. Yunnan now supplies Japan with more than half of its annual demand...
...examines the day's harvest. "Now everybody wants to pick mushrooms. But they pick them when they're too immature, so the mushrooms get fewer and fewer." Competition for matsutake is fierce in the region?resulting in violence and even murder in recent years. Only time will tell whether Yunnan's matsutake industry is sustainable. For now, Sui-nong believes his best hope is a little cunning. "I'm still keeping my patches a secret," he says, "while I pray for more thunder...