On the Prowl in Provence With the Truffle Enforcer

"I'm not sure the business will be around for my children," he said, fingers caked in truffle dust as he sorted through a screen-bottomed bin of newly purchased truffles. A decade ago, he said, he would buy at least 2,000 pounds of fresh French black truffles on a Saturday market day. On a recent Saturday, he purchased about a third of that amount and considered it a good day.

Valayer bent over a mound of dirt-covered truffles that ranged in size from walnuts to softballs. He separated the specimens gnawed by rats, softened by fly larvae, munched by caterpillars or waterlogged by wet ground. He cut away the damaged sections and tossed the salvaged chips into a bin for canning. A half-ounce container of such leftovers was selling for $30 last week at Fauchon, the fancy Paris-based food emporium.

Across the metal table, truffle inspector Roudiere gently placed slivers of truffles, one by one, into a plastic bag and tagged it for processing at a government laboratory. There, scientists will examine the pieces under a microscope for details missed with the naked eye. He had spotted a few inferior French truffles, but no cheap Chinese cousins.

This was a friendly inspection, with his hosts cutting a perfectly ripened black truffle into paper-thin rounds and serving them with sea salt as the only embellishment. These samples were slightly crunchy, with a nutty forest flavor that lingered on the tongue long after the truffle was swallowed.

Truffle broker Valayer says he has little appetite for truffles after spending all day in the warehouse breathing their dust and odor, which bears a resemblance to a barn stall in need of cleaning. Still, he offered his favorite recipes -- the same used in many restaurants -- before Roudiere departed: truffle shavings sprinkled as a garnish over hot potatoes or layered on a fresh baguette, or perhaps cooked whole in an oven at low heat in a pool of butter.

Roudiere, 55, with a shock of white hair and a face recognized in truffle markets across the region, has seen vendors flee the minute he appears. "I'm not a policeman, I can't chase them," he said. "Our presence makes people aware of the fact they can be checked."

Each year, a handful of sellers, restaurants and shops are prosecuted for truffle fraud in his district, according to Roudiere. And though the penalties -- ranging from a few hundred dollars for mislabeling French truffles to nearly $20,000 for palming off a Chinese truffle as its French cousin -- may be minimal, the main deterrent is the sign that any convicted shopkeeper or restaurateur must post in a window announcing the transgression to all.

So far this year, Roudiere has not found any Chinese imports mixed with French or labeled as French, though specimens he took from a regional restaurant and sent to the lab recently "don't look good." In Paris and elsewhere in France, other inspectors have found Chinese truffles in the kitchens of restaurants advertising them as French, according to the finance ministry.

What's the difference between a $1,200-a-pound French black truffle and a $100-a-pound Chinese variant?

"The smell -- the perfume is stronger, more alive than the Chinese truffle," said Claudine Muckensturm, the Paris-based national director of the finance ministry's fraud prevention unit. "The taste -- how can I explain? The Chinese truffle is less refined, it has a less pronounced taste."

Roudiere is less romantic.

"Tastes are subjective," he said. "My job is not to judge products on their taste, but to have scientific proof to determine if it's good or not."

Though Roudiere also inspects dozens of other agricultural products and menu items, including foie gras and champagne, the truffle detective work remains his favorite.

"I like the hidden aspect," he said. "It's not like telling the difference between a red and a green apple. There's a lot of fantasy, magic and mystery surrounding the truffle."

Researcher Corinne Gavard contributed to this report.