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Tag: truffles

  • Searching for truffles in a beech forest

    On Saturday, the last day with my guide Robert Biro’, we joined a truffle hunt with a small group of people, consisting, among others, of the father and sister of Oszkár Fekete, who had founded Truffoir Ltd for collecting truffles in Romania and exporting them to big markets, like in Italy.

    In order to find the truffles, they had four canine companions:

    • Zsofi – female
    • Kalaro – female
    • Csonti – male
    • Missy – female

    Due to a long drought, the dogs hadn’t searched for truffles for a long time such their owners didn’t expect them to be in excellent truffle-hnting shape.

    Trufffoir was started by Oszkár about 15 years ago because nobody was collecting truffles in Romania. He and his sister started collecting truffles 7 years ago, while their father started later. Before that, they bought truffles from truffle gatherers and sold them on. Now, they are building a truffle processing factory in Eger, Hungary in order to get a higher price for their products.

    Training of the dogs start with throwing a ball in front of a potential truffle dog. If it collects it, they lay a truffle on the ground and see if it finds it and brings it back to the owner. Next, they lay a truffle below leaves and finally they lay it below ground. If the dogs find them, they are on their way to become truffle dogs.

    We drove on a gravel road into a beech forest where the truffle hunters followed the dogs, which would start scratching the ground if they found any. Like my previous experience of watching a dog searching for truffles with its owner, the dogs require lots of caresses and treats to work, even when they don’t find anything! Anyway, as far as I could tell, the dogs were given the same kind of treats whether they found a truffle or not. When a dog indicated that it had found a truffle, their human owners would use two kinds of specialised metal tools to dig up the truffle. At least three dark truffles called tuber aestivum with the size of half a hen’s egg were found, but they also found some small ones. Besides, they found some false truffles, which weren’t collected.

    romania_truffles

    After one hour, the dogs had to go back to the cars for drinking water and after another one, the truffle hunt was finished. It was great walking in a beech forest, watching man and dogs cooperate to find truffles.

  • The Truffle Dog University

    Web site

    Map reference

    Photo gallery

    Unfortunately, it isn’t enough just to bring a dog into a forest, let it sense the scent of a truffle and then order it to search for another one.

    Training a dog to search for truffles is an art where the owner has to work quite hard with the relation between man and animal. According to my guide, Filippo, the truffle dogs are often crossbreeds and not of pure race. Even though I don’t know the syllabus at the Truffle Dog University, which was founded in 1880 by the great-grandfather of Giovanni Monchiero, the present owner, it certainly isn’t easy to study there! Since the dogs have to pass a demanding education, they receive a certificate of completion at graduation.

    We witnessed a simulated search for truffles in a hazel nut plantation in the vicinity of Roddi, meaning that before the search started, Giovanni had hidden some truffles at various places in the hazel nut plantation. Being a good truffle dog, it even found other truffles not hidden by Giovanni.

    During the simulated search Giovanni let his dog walk around freely, but following the instructions of his owner. When the dog found something interesting, it started immediately digging with his forepaws, indicating to his owner where to find another choice truffle. Then, Giovanni stopped the dog digging, and started digging carefully himself using both his hands and a tool called a sapin, ideal for digging gently. At the same time, the dog was lying on the ground, observing what was happening and waiting for his reward. After having found another truffle, the dog is always given something good to eat and lots of caresses.

    After having extracted the truffle from the ground, the hole has to be covered meticulously in order to avoid destroying neither roots nor seeds left by the truffle, letting other truffles be able to grow up in the same place,

    While we were watching the truffle hunt, it seemed like Giovanni and his dog acted almost like one. A citation from the web site of Giovanni should suffice to confirm this: only a close relation with the right dog will allow the owner to recognise the signals indicating the presence of a truffle.