Culinary Travel – Truffle Hunting

Some people travel for adventure, some for education, some for relaxation, and some for the food! Even if we are travelling for new experiences or just to get away from it all, most of us enjoy tasting the new-to-us local specialties and the delicious culinary offerings that we encounter on our travels. But guess what? There is such a category as culinary travel, a chance to stay in a new country (or region) with the specific goal of learning to cook (and eating) a local dish. A popular one of these culinary jaunts has you hunting the raw ingredient too. That ingredient is truffles.

What is a Truffle?

If you are not familiar with this food, it is nasty-looking, small (no bigger than a baseball, and often much smaller) fungus. It can be white, brown-black, or reddish depending where it is grown. Its taste and smell are distinctive and pungent. And it is wild, so no farm visits involved (though cultivated truffles are becoming available). Unlike mushrooms which are easy to spot, truffles grow underground in a symbiotic relationship with tree roots, specifically those of the oak, beech, poplar or hazel. Throw in specific moisture, soil PH, temperature, and mineral requirements, and truffles become a rare find. On a truffle vacation, you most likely will be holidaying in Europe, usually Italy, or perhaps France, though white truffles are found in Oregon.

How Do You Truffle Hunt?

With truffles being hard to find,  dogs are the solution. If you are on a truffle holiday, you will most likely head out with a local expert and his/her specially trained, truffle-scenting dog into the hills and woods where truffles have been found previously. Dogs have great senses of smell and whereas one can try to spot likely truffle hiding places with the human eye, as is often done in Oregon, it is much more efficient to employ these olfactory masters. Pigs were once used for this task but unfortunately liked the taste of truffles too (which dogs do not) and disturbed the growing area with their digging. Carelessly disturbed ground may mean that truffles will not grow in this spot there again – or at least for a very long time. With truffles so rare and subsequently hard to find, it makes sense to preserve any growing environment at all costs.