Last Updated on April 3, 2024
Truffle hunting in Italy can be a fun experience for all. Just be prepared for the weather…
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
By Jim Ferri
Truffles are often said to be the “diamonds of the kitchen” because of the exquisite earthy taste they bring to food. Finding diamonds, however, may be easier.
Nevertheless, a truffle hunt can be a fun experience during a trip to Italy.
There are two types of truffles, black and white, the latter having sold for as much as $3,600 a pound. A Macau billionaire paid $330,000 at one charity auction for about 2.8 pounds of truffles. They are the most expensive food in the world.
I’d always wanted to go on a truffle hunt, especially in Italy. While training about Europe for two months, I decided I’d finally do it.
Since I was going to visit Bologna, one of the top places to visit in Italy, I thought, what better place to learn about truffles than in the food mecca of Italy.
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Truffle Hunting in Italy with Bluone Food and Wine Tours
I learned of Bluone, a small family-run company in Bologna, through an article in The New York Times. After contacting them I found that in addition to cooking tours they also hosted truffle hunting in Italy tours. In addition, their tours include a cooking demonstration and lunch in a farm home.
Although at the time one could book the truffle hunt as a day tour, today it is available only as part of Bluone’s Taste of Bologna and Emilia Romagna tour.
I knew I was in food heaven when I arrived in Bologna, Italy’s foodie mecca. Marcello Bluone asked that I meet his wife Raffaella and two Australian tourists at a hotel near Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore a bit before eight o’clock the morning of our truffle hunt. When I got there the weather had turned rainy, although it hadn’t dampen our spirits. In Raffaella’s car we soon set off for the hills outside the city.
En route Raffaella stopped at a farmer’s supply store where we purchased some inexpensive rain jackets, pants and boots. We were also joined there by Raffaella’s daughter Francesca. We were soon off to meet Silvano Montefiore. Silvano was our hunter but it was his dog, Spino, who would be doing all the hard work.
Hello Spino, Our Truffle Hunter
Spino was a Lagotto, a small, wiry dog resembling a poodle. Although it is the official truffle hound, many dogs are taught to be truffle hunters in Italy.
After driving through the fog and rain on winding roads through the hills, we arrived where Spino was to hunt. Once out of his cage in the back of Silvano’s car, he was a bundle of energy.
We walked a little down the road and turned onto a dirt and gravel road. We soon found it ran into the woods and then out to a meadow. Once unleashed, Spiro immediately began running through the woods. As the rain continued and fog drifted in, he continued his frantic search, bounding all over the hillside.
Into the Woods on Our Truffle Hunting in Italy Foray
We followed Silvano into the muddy woods, carrying his vanghetto, a cross between a little hoe and spear used for digging up the little tuber-like tartufi. Every once in a while, going down a little slope, we’d have to grab a small branch or sapling to prevent slipping on the muddy ground. We walked on, all of us with our cameras ready, awaiting the moment Spino would unearth a truffle.
Since they grow entirely underground with no shoots or leaves hinting at their presence, they’re very hard to find except by a trained dog or pig. In Italy, however, hunting pigs are rarely used any longer since they attempt to eat the truffle as soon as it’s found.
I watched in amazement as Spino continued running about frenetically with his nose to the ground, flitting in and out of the undergrowth so fast that he was almost a blur, with his brown fur blending with the muddy earth.
After about a half-hour, he dug furiously near a tangle of vines and small trees and pulled a mud-covered truffle from the soil. He exchanged it with Silvano for a treat as we gathered around to view it. It was an irregular black truffle and about two inches in length. We had finally hit paydirt on our truffle hunting tour in Italy!
Gianna’s Kitchen
It was Spino’s only find of the day, which in hindsight was probably fortunate since we were all a bit wet, and we needed to get on to Gianna’s farmhouse for the cooking demonstration and lunch.
We arrived at the farmhouse quite late because a traffic accident forced us to make a lengthy detour. When we arrived, Gianna was rolling dough on a large piece of plywood with a large rolling pin.
We all found it incredible how thin she had rolled the dough out, so thin that you see the grain of the wood through the pasta. This being Italy, you could tell this woman was as serious about her food as Silvano was about his truffle hunting.
In addition to the cooking demonstrations at the farm, Gianna and her family also make a special olive oil that has a unique taste because the trees grow in a cooler climate. They also make their own wine, which we later found was quite good.
The three of us watched as Gianna made her little raviolis, which we subsequently had for lunch, along with a frittata and a bruschetta with fresh truffles. She grated her tartufi and mixed it with salt, pepper, and exceptional olive oil.
It was delicious and fitting to end our wet day of truffle hunting in Italy. We arrived back in Bologna in the late afternoon, but that wasn’t to be the end of it for me.
Off To the Food Markets
The following morning, I joined Raffaella again as she took me and another couple on a tour of Bologna’s old food markets. That was a fascinating tour, as we went from store to store and market stall to market stall. Raffaella explained the importance of all the different pasta, vegetables, meats, and fish to the Bolognese palette.
Raffaella stopped and shopped as we walked along, and she asked me to join the three of them for a home-cooked Bolognese meal that afternoon. It was so deliciously tempting, but I couldn’t join them because there were other people I needed to meet since I was leaving the next morning.
What an opportunity to have to miss, I thought.
Damn…
You may also enjoy: Things To Do in Bologna (for Foodies) / Irpinia in Campania – Italy’s Next Hot Spot? / A Multi-Generational Cooking Class in Florence, Italy
If You Go:
Bluone Food and Wine Tours in Italy
Via Parigi, 11
40121 Bologna, Italy
Tel: (+39) 051 263546
http://www.bluone.com
Bologna Welcome
https://www.bolognawelcome.com/en
[…] I set off for Bologna to learn about its food, see its ancient markets and, perhaps, have a bite or two along the way. Desiring to be educated by one close to the source, I contacted Marcello Tori of Bluone – Wine and Cooking Tours in Italy. The company is located in Bologna and is the same organization that organized the truffle hunt I was on earlier (see Truffle Hunting in Italy). […]