IN SEARCH OF TRUFFLES.

Shannon News, 14 December 1923, Page 4

IN SEARCH OF TRUFFLES.

THE PERIGUEUX INDUSTRY.

Dbwn in the beechwoods near Perigueux, chief town of the Department of the Dordogne, I found the truffle ' hounds ‘being tried out, a 'couple of weeks ago, writes "Perigord,” to the"" Daily. Mail." Dogs are an adaptive and longsuffering race. ; -They haul explorers to the Poles’ and Northern Canada's mails over frozen They pursue fo;xes in England and motor-cars in Constantinople. They take round the bread and the milk in Holland. In, the Dordogne they hunt truffles after a course of training. V

Pigs have an even keener nose for the work, but they are less docile and easy to persuade to stand aside at the critical moment, for their master to take the spoils. ' The training of a truffle-hunting 'dog begins as a puppy. Minced truffle is mixed in with his earliest food, so that as he grows up he steadily continues to associate truffles with dinner; it is difficult to describe ; the characteristic scent of truffles. .It resembles that of; strawberries, perhaps, more than anything else. There comes a day when the dog's master begins to take him out for field work. A dish of chopped truffle and earth is hidden, first under a few dead leaves, then under a sprinkling of soil; then it is buried two or three inches deep below .the light friable earth of the woods of Perigord. - • THE DISH FINDERS. The dog's sense of' smell gud alacrity to exert it is quickened by the circumstance that he had been kept on short commons for a day previously. When his eagerlyranging nose find,s the dish he is given a nice juicy bone. Before long he becomes an expert dish finder. From that it is but a step to finding the. subterranean truffles them-, selves, when there is a welcome gobbet of meat for each find.,

It might be I worth our while to take up truffling in England, for. these dainties are in good demand 1 for flavouring the delicacies of wealthy gourmets, and, I. am told there are some 40 kinds in our southern countries, half of which arc edible. The best ground for Ithe. truffle hunter is oak and beechwoods, on light limestone soil. Our best English truffle is Tuber aestivum, that I,o oks like a warty little dark grey apple, sometimes showing a white vein? ing on the surface.

The poorer y Italians set great stock in a garlic-scented truffle, Tuber magnatum, which they roast in hot ashes. . :,

By no means everything that looks like a truffle is one. A large trade is done in the " false truffle," a puff-ball fungus (Scleroderma vulgare), which is easier to find and looks, when prepared for the table- like the real thing. The gourmet detects it at once, how-v ever, by its lack of flavour, and i|ts price is far below that of the genuine truffle.