Woodland treasures: the truffles of Umbria

As truffles grow underneath the ground, you need more than just a keen eye to know where to find them. While there are certain tell-tale signs – bare earth at the base of old trees is where truffles are most likely to grow – it helps to enlist the help of an animal with a keen sense of smell. Pigs were traditionally used to sniff out truffles, but it proved difficult to stop them eating any they found. These days most truffle hunters are accompanied by dogs, expertly trained from birth, which can pick up the scent of any nearby truffles, run over to its exact location and wait patiently for the hunter to dig it up.

That’s not to say truffle hunting is easy, though. The average hunter spends hours walking through the forests, digging up the ground and constantly making sure no one is trying to discover their patch. Most of this is done very early in the morning under the cover of darkness. However, being based in Umbria means a truffle hunter tends to return home with a good haul most days – and what soon follows is a veritable feast in the kitchen.

Truffles are integral to Umbrian cuisine. They’re used in much the same way as anywhere else in Italy – grated over pasta, stirred through scrambled eggs, shaved over risottos – but rather than being saved for special occasions or only sold in high-end restaurants, they’re more of an everyday ingredient. They’re thrown into salumi, stuffed inside spit-roast rabbits, used to flavour cheese, honey, olive oil, mustard… anything that would benefit from the earthy funk of truffle (which, let’s be honest, is most things) receives it.

While black truffles (tartufi neri) are available for most of the year (although they’re at their best from around May to August), white truffles (tartufi bianchi) can also be found in the winter months. These are the most highly prized truffles of all, and are mostly found in one specific area – the countryside around Orvieto, Gubbio and the Tiber Valley. White truffles are reserved for special occasions and celebrations, as they’re much more seasonal, expensive and harder to come by, so be sure to order them if you spot them on a menu. However, any truffle dish in Umbria is bound to be delicious and there’s nowhere else in the world where they grow in such abundance. If you’re a fan of this very special tuber, there’s no better place to visit.