Hunt For The White Tartufo

Marco had kindly arranged for Imperio, the resident tartufaio or truffle finder, to pick me up for the truffle hunt but it rained again in the morning so after lunch, the 75-year-old and his shy dog Tobi collected me at 1.30pm and we proceeded to the dense moist woods near the cattle ranch.

Not that I was unfit, but I was trying to catch up with them in my oversized PCK yellow boots while navigating the slippery muddy mosh and pickly bushes. At one point, in my haste not to lose sight of them, I fell and nearly caked my face with mud! Not that Imperio noticed anyway; he was busy egging Tobi on with 'Dove?' (where is it?) and Tobi who was so pensive in the car suddenly came into his element and responded by poking his face into every crevices in the dirt, muddy waters and thick undergrowth.

It was such a joy simply to watch both man and dog in action, especially adorable Tobi indifferent to the occasional loose leaves stuck to his forehead. Picture him as a darling white ball of curly wool with the most expressive eyes and brown patches over his left ear. The only time he pranced around me was when I found a couple of large mushrooms and he became momentarily distracted by the equally deliciously earthy aroma of funghi.

Imperio explained to me in Italian (which I somehow managed to make out) to watch Tobi's tail as sign for tartufo. True enough, the next moment his tail wagged like a magic feather duster in a frenzy (left-right-up-down-all-around) and dug his front paws into a spot where he smelled a trace. Imperio would then take over and dug at the mark and pressed his nose into a handful of soil to confirm if we had struck gold. He stuck out his hand for me to smell but I could only detect fresh wet soil and nodded politely.

After 10 mins of Imperio's careful digging urged by Tobi's tartufo dance, we finally glimpsed a small nugget of truffle that could pass for a mouldy pebble. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference till he proudly presented it to me and I pressed my face to inhale the deeply earthy savoury aroma. Ahh. I beamed at Tobi and declared him 'bravo' and he danced around me somemore, hoping I'd drop the mushrooms.

It was hard to describe the tartufo's perfume but Gianluca later told me there were various terms reserved such as honey, herby and nutty used by connoisseurs, akin to how one would describe the bouquet of wines. I learnt that it really depended on the kind of host tree for example truffles which were commonly grown near oak trees would carry a stronger earthy perfume while those found close to pine trees might have a more pungent garlic flavour.

Gianluca also mentioned that in Tuscany, 1 gram of white truffle could sell from 1 to 3 euros depending on the farm's harvest which ranged from 22 kg last year to a miserable 2kg the previous year. The best time to harvest it was from mid-October to December, so I guessed today was just for me to experience the hard work!

Another interesting fact he pointed out was that Tobi belonged to the costly Lagotto Romagnolo breed which was common in the Romagna part of the Emilia Romagna region. It was the only breed of dog officially recognised as a specialist in truffle hunting; favoured over the traditional pig sniffer because the pigs were hard to train but I suspected they were probably smarter than we thought, since they would devour the truffles at their first chance!