Truffle hunting in Umbria

Have you ever gone truffle hunting?

We have been offering truffle hunting to the participants of our Italian cooking classes for quite some time and it has always been a great experience. Today we have another appointment in the forest and I am looking forward to it. Together with professional truffle hunters and their dogs, we will begin the search for the precious tubers. We first meet our guides Lena and Saverio at the ancient city wall of Citerna, a really pretty Umbrian mountain town that overlooks the Tiber Valley. (For those of you who are interested in art: Citerna is a stone’s throw from Monterchi, where you can see the world famous “Madonna del Parto” by Piero della Francesca. And by the way, the little church of Citerna houses a Royal Sculpture by Della Robbia)

From here we drive in a convoy to the truffle “plantation”, a bit fenced in wood (the truffle places in nature are top secret and by the “tartufai”, the truffle hunters, their locations are revealed only within the circle more close to family members if they reveal themselves at all) At the entrance of the truffle plantation we meet the truffle hunters whom we will accompany today along with their dogs, Asia (a very experienced “truffle nose”) and Sandy ( his apprentice still a bit clumsy).

Some introductory explanations and here we go …

The dogs, once released from the leash, are released so quickly that we can barely follow them. Barely a hundred meters in front of us, Asia begins to dig with all her might and Giovanni, her “padrone”, has a hard time holding her back.

(Not that truffles are eaten in a hurry by dogs like truffle pigs would, and are therefore hardly used anymore. However, a truffle is delicate and quickly damaged by sharp teeth or large legs.)

Finally, one of our ladies extracts the truffle following the instructions of the experts using the small shovel of the truffle hunter. He gives it to others. Still dirty and somewhat unimpressive, it nonetheless has the distinctive truffle aroma and of course everyone in our group wants to smell it. Of course, Asia gets her dog biscuit (no proud dog works without a reward). This is how it continues while Saverio sometimes in the double continues to explain more about the truffle and truffle hunting.

After almost an hour we have almost filled our bag. 360 grams as we discovered later by putting it on the scale. The dogs are still in shape and would happily carry on, but we’re pretty tired and longing for a cappuccino.