Truffle Season

It is not hard to be totally and incurably enamored and smitten with truffles and all there is to do with truffles. I for one can't seem to get them out of my head. I want to forage for them, cook with them, read about them, grow them, you name it. I think it has to do with the mystique of this knobby little fungi that grows underground where you can't see them and have to understand your surroundings well enough to know where to look for them and then find them.

These days the best way to forage for truffles is to have a well trained dog who can sniff out the ripe truffles so you are only harvesting the cream of the crop. Here in Oregon using dogs for truffling is barely heard of and is only being done by a scant few. Hopefully in the near future this trend will catch on and more and more people will utilize the keen senses of our friend the dog who can sniff out the ripe truffles and leave the unripe to be harvested another day.

I managed to get out over the weekend with a friend and of course Maggie the Wonder Dog and forage for Oregon black truffles Leucangium carthusianum and the Oregon winter white truffle, Tuber oregonense. We managed to find some of both which made me very happy. I was quite pleased to find out that Maggie seems to have an instinctual nose for truffles as well. It wasn't like she was running around with her nose to the ground, having had no training whatsoever, but my friend was peeling back the duff in one area and gently raking to see what was under the duff and Maggie came over to a spot very near where he was working and started to sniff the ground pretty intently. He took his rake and peeled back the duff and there was a black truffle! Way to go Maggie! Now that I have some ripe truffles on hand I'm going to start a formal training program with her to try to get more results in the field.

Oregon truffles have had a bad rap for some time now due to commercial harvesters harvesting and selling unripe truffles, which in turn have been sold to distributors and ended up in stores throughout the country and sold to unsuspecting people as an inferior and unripe product.
This needs to stop. Truffles need to be at least horticulturally ripe when harvested in order to continue the ripening process at home and bring them to full ripeness for culinary uses. Too many truffles are being raked up and sold unripe and will never get ripe due to not being horticulturally ripe when picked. The only way to ensure full ripeness when picking is to have a keen truffle dog that can sniff out only the ripe ones. So, it only makes sense that if you are going to train a dog to detect ripe truffles, you only use ripe truffles while training. You would think that was a given, but you'd be surprised at what goes on out there.

Anyway, back to the truffles at hand. The lovely Oregon black truffles have an aroma unlike any other truffle I've ever smelled. Like a glass of fine red wine, you can detect hints of familiar scents. When I sniff a ripe Leucangium carthusianum I get hints of pineapple, chocolate, mango, more sweet smelling and fruity things. This truffle can be used in dessert dishes according to its ripeness. Much to the contrary with the Tuber oregonense I get a heady, earthy, garlicky, intoxicatingly rich and pungent aroma that will fill your entire house, refrigerator, freezer etc. and all its contents with its powerful yet delicious stench. (I mean that affectionately)

In the coming days I will be preparing some dishes using these truffles and will post the results here so stay tuned.