Lost Truffle Farm Remembered

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas (KXAN) - In 1989, Francois Picart was on the verge of making Dripping Springs history. Picart had worked for a decade to create several orchards of oak and hazelnut trees. He nurtured the trees through freeze and drought. He fought off insects and small mammals. Why, you ask, would he do that? He would do that because in France, the roots of such trees do some nurturing of their own. They nurture truffles, those rare black fungi that chefs and connoisseurs so treasure for their taste and aroma. The truffles can bring hundreds of dollars per pound, thus, their nickname: Black diamonds.

But why Dripping Springs? Well, it turns out that the climate, geology and topography of the Central Texas hill country is quite similar to the truffle regions of France and Picart took a notion to set up shop there. He wanted to domesticate and farm what in his home country, grows wild.

In March of 1989, Picart told KXAN, “When you go to the places in France, it’s a totally secretive world of truffle. People won’t tell you anything. They won’t tell you how they grow their trees. They won’t tell you where they harvest. They bring the truffle in a basket to the market hidden and, you know, they want to sell them because they like the money but they want to keep those truffles. It’s a totally amazing world.”

Picart, though, had done his homework. He turned to local realtor James Hurlbut for help buying suitable land. “He’d gone out purchasing property,” Hurlbut said, “drilling wells, putting in drip irrigation systems and all of this. I mean, it was a big project.”

Down the road, at Whisenant & Lyle Water Systems, water well driller Pat Lyle did lots of work for Picart. Lyle was impressed at first, but then the trouble began. “The rabbits and stuff would bite holes in the pipe,” Lyle said, “and we wouldn’t be able to get water to the truffle trees and they’d die and it was just always something.”

That was just the beginning. “He kept bringing workers over from France,” Hurlbut said. “They would come here and have all the freedoms and they wouldn’t go to work. They found Austin to be a great place to go and the last time he came, after firing two or three fellows, he couldn’t find his truck his trailer; he couldn’t find the guy; he couldn’t find anything. So he got real frustrated and called me one day and said, ‘Sell everything, I’m getting out of the business.’”

Amazingly, though, almost twenty years later an old wooden sign still stands at the corner of Belle Springs Road and Daisy Lane. It advertises, “Texas’ First Truffle Orchard” above Picart’s name. Surrounding the sign, a dozen or so healthy live oak and Spanish oak trees grow, many of the latter basking in the radiant reds of fall.

As for Picart, some say he returned to France, others that he’s running a restaurant in Florida. Life in Drippin’, as the town is known to its residents, has moved on. From time to time, however, someone wonders aloud, “I wonder what ever happened to that truffle guy from France.” Now they know.

One last note: This story was prompted by a Dripping Springs blogger. Beverly Cambron’s Dripping Springs Babble reports on all things Drippin’ and she asked her readers what they knew about Picart and his project. That’s what sent us scurrying around for the answers. Twenty years ago, the Internet, its blogs, research tools, emails and web cams had yet to come into widespread use. That raises an intriguing question: If Francois Picart was trying to create his truffle farm today, might it not get lost, after all?

Meanwhile, just one question remains: What, if anything, is hugging the roots of those trees put in the ground by Francois Picart a quarter century ago? What, indeed?