AUPS, France — Philippe Daniel opens a slim briefcase so buyers can glimpse his wares, then snaps it shut with a wary glance over his shoulder.
Daniel is not dealing in contraband but in truffles — the fruiting body of a fungus that grows on oak and hazel tree roots. Prized for its heady fragrance and earthy flavor, it’s a coveted culinary treasure.
Daniel used to deal in big quantities. But for the past five years, drought has been parching the Var region of southeastern France as well as truffle-producing regions in Italy and Spain — and today he can fit his entire weekly harvest in a single plastic bag.
He’s not the only one.
Organizers at the market in the Var village of Aups, where Daniel plies his wares, have had to suspend the weekly wholesale auction, where middlemen used to bid tens of thousands of dollars for mounds of truffles. There simply aren’t enough of the fragrant fungi.
At the Aups market, the black truffle’s price has more than doubled over the past five years, to about $560 a pound.
Farmers say production is down 50 percent to 75 percent this winter, and they blame global warming, warning that it may mean France’s black truffle will one day be a memory.
This is not the first time weather has chopped French truffle production; a drought in the early ’60s halved the harvest. But the trufficulteurs, as truffle farmers are known, contend this current dry spell is longer and more acute.
