I just had a visit from Fabienne, the angel of mercy and bastion of local knowledge who helped us take care of our elders at that time when such qualities were in short supply. But this afternoon the first words out of her mouth were “Trumpets of Death.” Then she couldn’t even finish her excited sentence because she gasped at the sight of my little basket. I had to physically block her from dumping it into the rubbish – “we only collected them because they’re pretty!” Even I am not stupid enough to eat found mushrooms without taking them first to the pharmacy. (Honestly, yes, in the countryside there is still someone in the pharmacy who checks your mushrooms to make sure they won’t kill you. Can you imagine their liability insurance?)
This is the time of year when the vignerons can rest a little, and if they’re not pulling out their shotguns against pheasants, deer and wild boar, they’re pulling out their baskets and parking their cars in really the oddest places, near some anodyn looking woods in the middle of nowhere. If you were me you’d think nothing. If you are Fabienne, you wonder what they know that you don’t know.
Mushroom hunting is a ritual cloaked in secrecy, wrapped in old and steadfast friendships. No one divulges their locations. After maybe 100 years of local residence, time enough to prove you won’t reveal the precious spots, they might blindfold you and let you come along.
Our friend Wilfrid says that this area, with all the oaks, used to be a heaven for truffles. But so many people died in WWI that much of the knowledge (and notations of the spots) died with them. I told Fabienne I was tempted to buy some of those “truffle oaks” you hear about and see if we might start cultivating truffles in 8 years. Of course she clucked and said that’s a bunch of nonsense. That the real truffles, the best truffles, the black truffles, only grow in the deepest woods of the Perigord. Her grandfather told her that the secret to truffles is a rare, indigenous fly that picks up and disperses the spores… But he, like his last remaining mushroom-clever cronies are pushing 95. I scream we have emergency anthropological field work to do while those fellows can still tell their stories. Fabienne agrees to take me to his house. Then she adds that’s since he’s almost deaf, I better bring an ear horn, along with the blindfold.
She leaves me with her best tip – beware of the butcher who tries to sell you boudin with truffles – 
how do you know he hasn’t just accepted a gift of a basket of “trumpets of death” chopped them up, soaked them in egg batter so they acquire the smell of truffles, and stuffed them into his sausage. How do you know?
Anyway, if you’re a lucky outsider of less than 100 years residence, someone adorable like Fabienne might show up on your door step tomorrow with a gift of “trompettes de la mort” or “girolles” or whatever else her discreet clan has found that morning after a rain…. maybe even truffles. And you shine with gratitude and anticipation thinking of the amazing omelette you suddenly decided to make for dinner tonight. A little homemade olive oil for the salad from the neighbor with an olive press, some home made wine from guess who, some home made goat cheese from the Friday night local market – and your family is in pig heaven.