Friday night we ended up at Basalt for dinner with most of our fellow hunters, lovely local food, wonderful wine and, as it turned out, excellent company.
Saturday morning was the hunt. It was cold, very cold, "fucking freezing" according to Mr Brown but he forgot to pack his possum socks and has obviously become totally and utterly Sydney-fied.
I thrived, I loved it. It was fresh and brisk and energizing and once your feet froze completely you couldn't feel them anymore anyway. Because it was cold I completed the entire hunt, all 800 trees, without a grumble. Turns out I'm a cold climate girl.
Zeeta the truffle hound, trained by Adrian (who also trains guide dogs I heard) was the star, snuffling out about 1/2 a dozen of the mighty things. 
The smell is amazing, and the wonder of it is, once they are ripe you can smell them above the ground, if you're willing to kneel down in the dirt and damp and stick your bum in the air that is.
Suffice to say, enough beautiful, big, scented truffles were found for our dinner that night, all made with the fresh truffles we'd pulled out of the ground that very morning.I won't say anything but WOW, and tease you with the menu.
Buttermilk Rolls with Truffle Butter (I bought 300g to bring home so good was that butter)
Parsnip & Celeriac Soup with Scallop, Shallot & Truffle
Ham & Truffle Croquettes with Micro Salad
Beef & Venison Daube w Shaved Truffle and Truffle Pommes Puree
Poached Pear on Phillo Nest with Hazelnut Caramel and Black Truffle Anglaise
Each course with its accompanying wine of course.
The wines of the region, o my, but that's a story for next time (about 6 & a half cases made their way home with us).
The hunt was a blast, the truffle farmers wonderful hosts and the organisers, well, just fantastic. I didn't think about work the entire time away.
And for those of you with the time, 16 million photographs for your viewing pleasure.
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16 comments:
Sounds fantastic on every level.
I look forward to the wine post, too.
Uli, it was, wine post will be slightly shaming!
It looks like a giant poo! wouldn't it have been more fun with a truffle hunting pig? tho ma says they try to eat them - piggy pigs! x
I didn't realize that there are actual oak truffle orchards, planted and watered specifically to encourage truffles. What an amazing idea! Did they "seed" the trees with truffle spores to get them going, I wonder, or do truffle spores just find their way to oak trees?
Glad you had a splendid time, a lovely meal, good companions and better wines. The dog is lovely, too, isn't he?
Cheers!
I have never seen such huge truffles!
Swoon.
*faint*
Rupert was very good, BTW.
WOW!!!!
Zeeta is gorgeous!
It sounds fabulous.
Could you please upload just a wee bit of that truffle butter?
Thank you!
;o)
- Lee
Oh WOW!! I am VERY jealous (besides the 'fucking freezing' part). I LOVE truffels oil, it's just super expensive. Thanks for sharing this - what an amazing experience!
Sue x
Never saw such HUGE truffles. Jealous.
Lee, Zeeta was a lovely girl, and so very clever. I don't think truffle butter would travel, but you know it would be the variety on the table should you ever make your way down under :)
Sue - I LOVED the cold, but I'm odd like that, glad you enjoyed it.
Cookie I NOES! They were freaking huge, even after all the dirt was cleaned off. I was expecting wee scrabbly things but no, they were monsters.
S - your comment has appeared at last! I'd hate to he the thing that pooed something that size & shape. They don't use pigs because they get too big to control and yes, because they want to eat the truffles. I'd get myself one of those miniture piggies though, cos they are adorable!
Zoomie - your comment has appeared at last! Truffle orchards are the only way it's done here in Australia. They have them all over Europe too, though, even France. Not for white truffles, only the black, they've not yet worked out how to inoculate trees with the white.
There's a bloke down in Tasmania who knows how to inoculate trees with the truffle spores, if you want to grow truffles in Australia you have to buy a tree from him pretty much. He won't tell anyone how he does it.
If we lived in a cold climate I'd grow one in our back yard - it would be soooo cool!
Oh my! I was waiting to see if you'd show us pictures of truffle-hunting pigs! The dogs are cute and all, but really, I'm just a wee bit disappointed. :)
Sorry Ro, they don't do pigs but when I grow up and become a truffle farmer I'm going to train teacup pigs to truffle hunt!
I have a chef friend that would kill his entire family for a truffle that big... did anyone calculate the retail cost for you?
Loved the photos, and despite the woofer being lovely, a truffle pig would be fab... did I hear someone knitting one?
Roo, tell he we dug up 3 that size and watch his head explode! They are about $2000 a kilo, the biggest was, all cleaned up, 1.2 kilo I think - too much for our budget I'm afraid:(
O, and I'm trying to talk my sister into crocheting a pig or two. she's resisting.
Wow. I guess you don't need pigs for this, if they are so fragrant as to be smelled by us mere humans. Love the picture of the dog just sitting there while the human is face down in the dirt.
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