The truffle – a worldwide highly prized mushroom

Truffles are mushrooms of bulb fruiting bodies, belonging to the genus Tuber, and their fruiting bodies are usually developed five to thirty centimeters below ground. It looks unpresentable, a bit like potato, it grows up to the size of cherries and apples (or more) and has a very strong and specific smell.

It is believed that its specific flavor hides a powerful aphrodisiac, that it keeps health and promotes longevity.

In Europe can be found about 180 species of truffles, of which only a dozen are edible. Truffles were known back in ancient times by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

The richest natural habitat of this fungus are found in Croatia in Istria,

where he first was discovered 1929th. These sites are located in the area around the Mirna river valley, mostly in the Motovun forest. The nearby town of Buzet was renamed into “The City of Truffles”, and a small town Livade is called “The World Center of Truffles”.

Once in the search of truffels it was used to go with pigs, but today in Istria the special dogs are trained for the search. They sniff them on a great distance, show the place to the owners, and then he slowly separates it out from the ground and re-covers the ground to alow the growth of a new fruit.

The black truffle (Tuber Aestivum Vittadini)

is one of the most expensive of edible mushrooms in the world, which is particularly appreciated in France. It matures in red soil in warm summers, and it is therefore called the summer truffle. It can be found also in Istria.

White truffle (Tuber Magnatum Pico)

is among the best and most expensive truffles, and has a strong and specific smell. Except in Istria, which has the largest sites of extremely high quality truffles, they can still be found in some regions of Italy and in France. White Istrian truffle grows in the damp gray soil in early fall and is among the most highly prized white truffles in the world.
The largest sample of a truffle ever found, was in Istria, close to a place Buje, it weighed 1,31 kg, and because of that was recoreded in a Ginness Book of World Records.

The experts say the best truffle is the fresh truffle. Served immediately after extraction, thinly sliced on a meat, fish, pasta or sausage. Today there are many modern methodes of processing the truffels and making a high-quality products, such as various spreads, cheeses, oil… The special delicacies are truffles in the cakes, ice-creams, chocolate. The gastronomic combinations with truffles are almost endless, but in Istrian traditional cuisine it is mostly served gently sliced with pasta fuzi and pljukanci, gnocchi, polenta and omelette.
The secret of the this unsinhtly mushroom is in the smell, which is difficult to describe. For some it is magical and intoxicating, the others cannot stand it.

The truffles are or worshiped or not tolerated, there is no middle…but once you try it and you like it, you will be seduced forever…