Noble flagship of French gastronomy, the truffle—"rabasse" in Provençal—is the only luxury product sold as it is, coming out of the rich terroirs of Provence, a region that produces 80% of French truffles. Black truffle season officially opens at the beginning of November, and it is in the communes of Richerenches and Carpentras, located in Provence's Vaucluse region, that the two most important truffle markets in the world are held.

A mushroom with a bewitching fragrance and exquisite taste, the truffle is hypogeal (lives underground), mycorrhizal (needs a host tree such as the holm oaks and white oaks in Provence), and saprophytic (feeds on organic matter from decaying plants). Irregularly round and ranging from the size of a walnut to the size of a big fist, it gives off an exceptional fragrance well known to connoisseurs. In the past, pigs were used to help locate and harvest truffles, though precautions had to be taken to prevent the pigs from devouring them upon discovery. Trained dogs are more commonly employed today; they can smell a truffle that is several meters away and more than thirty centimeters deep in the ground!