|
Paradoxplace Italy, France, Britain Photo and History Pages
IN SAN GIOVANNI D'ASSO (TUSCANY) FOR THE 2007 TRUFFLE FESTIVAL (1)
Link to 2: Back again in beautiful weather on 18 November 2007
Link to original page on the 2002 San Giovanni d'Asso Truffle Festival
Link to Paradoxplace Truffle Festival pages
|
|
|
Sunday 11 November - Paradox's friend Sean Caufield - the guy whose website you go to to book the best Tuscan holiday accomodation, kindly organized a day out at the San Giovanni d'Asso Truffle Festival. San Giovanni d'Asso is in South Tuscany, to the east of Buonconvento near the Abbey of Monte Oliveto .
Mid-morning, a small group gathered in the oak woods near the little town to witness a truffle hunt. On the right the hunter girls Toppina and Spina get their aromatic bearings for the event. Below, an impressively fast piece of digging destroys a mouse hole but does not reveal a golden tuber.
Italians train dogs for truffle hunting, and each hunter is allowed to use one or at most two dogs. It is said (reliably) that truffle aroma mimics the dominant sex hormone of the male pig, which is why lady pigs make good hunters also - except they relish eating the hormonic treasure when they dig it up. |
 |
|
|
|
|
Meantime the other team is having more success .... and in a market where every gram clocks up 4 to 6 Euros, even a piccolo find is a good one ....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After just over an hour the girls had found 3 truffles worth in total some 600 Euro retail - not a bad hour's work!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Time for a truffle lunch in the Castello on the hill .....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The restaurant is Ristorante del Castello - Tel: +39 0577 802939 - book if you want a table on the terrace above
There is - of course - a full set of course by course photos, but let's just say the food was as good as it sounds, and press on with the day ....
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean's guest Graeme Robertson, Chief Photographer for The Guardian newspaper and on a Tartufo assignment in Tuscany, interviews one of the hunters, who has reluctantly agreed to emerge from the Associazione office with a few thousand Euros' worth of white truffles - Sean is the interpreter and Adriano, having no useful role to play, wanders off down the road and discovers La Bottega della Crete ......
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
who do an excellent drop of Vino Rosso d'Orcia, enjoyed here with instant new friends Antonio and Giuseppe .........
|
|
|
|
|
|
which could very easily have slid into another bottle - had not the rest of the group, tiring of the limited number of questions you can usefully ask truffle hunters, been ready to go .......
|
|
|
and we returned the next week ......
|
|
|
Links to other Paradoxplace pages
All original material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission.
|
|
