I had the opportunity to try truffle hunting a few days ago. I had always associated pigs with trufle hunting but according to the lass that took us out to the woods dogs are better as they don't bite off your fingers when you try to retrieve the truffle!
Our "hunter" was a 2 year old golden lab called Igor.
He was pretty sharp (when we could persuade him to look for truffles instead of bringing us sticks to throw for him
)
Truffles apparently grow mostly in valleys where the ground is always moist and in the locale of beech, oak or poplar trees according to Igor's handler but tbh he just seemed to stop in the middle of anywhere and start digging.
The truffles are very close to the surface, an inch or two down at most and they certainly don't look like much when they come up.
After only a few minutes we had a reasonable return.
I didn't get any pics of the final haul but after 1 hour we had about a dozen truffles.
The ones we found were smooth and black truffles. White truffles apparently go for around £1200/kg.
When we got back they were prepared for us and we had them finely chopped on hot buttered toast. They tasted.....ok. I don't know what I'd expected but given the furore around them I expected more. TBH I preferred the boletus soup we got afterwards
Still it was an interesting experience and a good excuse for a walk in the woods.
Tim
Our "hunter" was a 2 year old golden lab called Igor.
He was pretty sharp (when we could persuade him to look for truffles instead of bringing us sticks to throw for him
)Truffles apparently grow mostly in valleys where the ground is always moist and in the locale of beech, oak or poplar trees according to Igor's handler but tbh he just seemed to stop in the middle of anywhere and start digging.
The truffles are very close to the surface, an inch or two down at most and they certainly don't look like much when they come up.
After only a few minutes we had a reasonable return.
I didn't get any pics of the final haul but after 1 hour we had about a dozen truffles.
The ones we found were smooth and black truffles. White truffles apparently go for around £1200/kg.
When we got back they were prepared for us and we had them finely chopped on hot buttered toast. They tasted.....ok. I don't know what I'd expected but given the furore around them I expected more. TBH I preferred the boletus soup we got afterwards
Still it was an interesting experience and a good excuse for a walk in the woods.
Tim
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