Truffle Hunting with Nero the SuperDog

Thursday October 1, 2015

Niccone Valley, Italy

Cold and Raining

Today, we are going truffle hunting and then attend a cooking class focused on truffles. I’ve never truffle (for that matter any mushroom) hunted before. We went hunting near a Medieval town called Cistina (Cistern) because it had an intricate cistern system which made them self sufficient in case of attack. Italy is amazing because everywhere one sees these Medieval towns perched on top of a hill. Cecilia our guide was fantastic. She explained how the dogs find the truffles with the truffle hunter. The dogs are specialty trained from when they are puppies. They are fed truffles so they get used to the taste and smell. The trick is to get the dog to stop digging so they will not destroy the truffle or eat it! We lost a few truffles because our hunter was a bit too late to get to the site and ended up being a good snack for Nero. Nero was our dogs name and he was very good and smart. Maniacally focused on getting truffles (and eating them). We found about 10 truffles all together.

After a quick tour of Cistina we headed to our cooking class which was located at a house that has been turned into a boutique truffle store. Gabriela is the owner and she makes and bottles truffle sauces that are sold all over the world. So before our cooking class, we did some truffle tasting, learned how it is processed (found out one can freeze truffles, but the most precious white truffles need to be freezed coated with butter or oil). The entire house smelled like truffles!

After getting a lecture and tasting all these different kinds of truffles it was time to start our cooking lesson. We first made the sponge cake for our dessert which was going to be an Italian trifle. After we made the sponge cake it was time to make chicken stuffled with truffles. And then the fun part where we made pici – a thick Italian spaghetti that is not egg based (just water) where we used 00 pasta flour, semoiina flour and a touch of chestnut flour. The pasta sauce was to die for as it was just chopped truffles in olive oil and garlic. We didn’t make a first course but Gabriela gave us a cookbook with the recipe which was a cheese flan served of course with shaved truffles. We enjoyed our dinner with a local white wine which was delicious!

After stuffing ourselves it was time to go back where we met up with my BFF Pricilla and her husband Stu where we had a nightcap together to catch up a bit and call it a night!

Nero, the superdog, ready to hunt