He looks at me. “I’m getting some no matter what. Can’t do chick flick night without chocolate, right?”
I scrunch my nose up in false sympathy. “That time of the month?”
“Hey, you’ll be thanking me later, missy.” He turns back to the man. “A kilogram, please.”
The man’s brows rise even higher, and I nudge Jack with an elbow.
“They’re expensive,” I whisper.
He nudges me back. “Live a little, Sheppard.” He smiles at the truffle man. “Everything we’ve tried today has been amazing, and truffles arealwaysa safe bet. But, yes, she’ll try a sample.”
Looking gratified by Jack’s request and trust, the man gets a burlap bag and starts carefully scooping the truffles. They’re much more textured than the truffles I’m used to and with less cacao powder on the outside, but I’m salivating as I watch them go in the bag. I’m not actually mad Jack’s getting a kilo. We haven’t really had lunch yet—just a smattering of samples from the booths—and some high-quality chocolate sounds amazing.
The man weighs them on the scale behind him. “These were found by our best pigs in the forest near Puymartin.”
Jack glances at me, and I do a little shrug. I never knew pigs were used to find cacao, but to be fair, I don’t know anything about cacao except that it rules my world. Heck, I don’t even know the difference between cocoa and cacao—or if thereisa difference.
He ties the string on the bag and hands it to Jack, then turns to take a truffle from the same basket. He sets it on a cutting board, takes a knife, and cuts off a slice. It’s an incredibly thin slice, but this stuff ain’t cheap, so I get it. The inside is a lighter, milk chocolate brown, and I have a good feeling about this. The man cuts a second slice, then hands the first to me with his plastic gloved hand.
“Merci,” I say before slowly placing it in my mouth.
Immediately, something isn’t right. Maybe it’s the garlicky taste. Or maybe it’s the spongy texture.
Suddenly it makes sense. The price. The strange appearance. The pigs in the forest. (Okay, those still don’t really make sense.) These are not rich, chocolate truffles. These are the fungus variety. Whose idea was it to use the same word for two completely different foods?
“It is much better when cooked, of course,” the man says, noting my less-than-thrilled reaction.
“Cooked?” Jack asks with a frown.
I grab his hand to warn him just as he pops it in his mouth like a Pringle.
“Yes,” the man says, watching Jack with expectant interest. “They are a delicacy, you know. Perhaps you may shave them over a bowl of fresh pasta when you cook your girlfriend a delicious dinner.” He looks at me with a knowing glint in his eye, and I force my best responsive smile as I chew the fungus in my mouth.
Jack goes still, and his chewing slows as things click in his brain just like they did in mine. The chewing resumes. “So good!” He does a totally unnecessary thumbs up, and I’m afraid any second he’s going to start pantomiming again.
I swallow my mouthful. It’s not bad. It’s just that, when you eat something expecting rich, creamy chocolate and you get mushroomy sponge instead, it’s bound to be a disappointment.
And now Jack has a kilogram of disappointment to pay for. He is single-handedly bank-rolling this region of France.
The grand total is 250 euros, and we leave the booth, the bustling of the market at odds with our stunned silence.
“So,” Jack finally says, “chocolate trufflesdon’tgrow in the forests of France.”
“As cool as that would be, I think we can confidently say they don’t.”
“And therearen’tspecial teams of pigs trained to sniff them out.”
I shake my head.
He sighs, looking at the bag of truffles. “Aren’t you supposed to be super cultured and well-traveled and stuff? You couldn’t have warned me I was thinking of the wrong truffles?”
“Well, if you hadn’t jumped the gun by buying more than twopoundsof them before we had a sample, maybe we wouldn’t be in this position.”
Jack stops on the corner of the street, lifting the burlap sack and staring at it with a frown. “What am I supposed to do with a kilogram of fungus, Sheppard?”
I say nothing, pressing my mouth together because I think, for once, Jack is genuinely frustrated. But it’s not long before the laughter breaks through my stiff lips.
Jack stares at me, dead-pan. “Yeah, laugh it up. Must feel good not to be the one who just spent a small fortune on glorified mushrooms.”
