Truffle Hunting

I went truffle hunting today, an experience which I found online that is quite popular in this area. I messaged a couple of vendors who organised such tours and found one that was available to do it on the day I wanted. I was asked to meet Nikola in the village Livade. 

I've never heard of Livade before, but when I got to the village, I found out that it's the World Truffle Centre. Wow! 

Nikola picked me up at the village, and together with 3 of his dogs, Nero, Inko and Dinko, we headed to the forest nearby to start our truffle hunting. I was surprised to find the dogs kept in the boot during our journey, but Nikola assured they were OK, and there are gaps that are slightly open for the dogs to get air. 

I was also surprised that I was the only 1, and that he was accommodative enough to just have me individually on a tour. 

Nikola was saying that during this time of the year, it's white truffles that are normally found - white truffles are more premium as compared to black truffles, due to their stronger fragrance and flavour. 

However this year has not been a great year for truffles, but also for honey and olives, and it's likely due to weather as the climate had been really weird this year, with not much rain as compared to other years. 

Nikola has been doing this for about 18 years. He was a civil engineer by profession, and then later decided to quit his job and have been doing this full time for the last 12 years. 

The earlier years he had found many huge ones; the prices of truffles previously were not as high, but with very little supply this year, prices had gone up tremendously. The current price for truffles is about Euro 4,000 per kg, though restaurants or shops would probably sell them for Euro 7,000 per kg. 

Nikola also mentioned there are probably about 500 Truffle hunters across the Istria region. 

We spent about 2.5 hours walking through the forest, and there were a couple times when we thought the dogs had found truffles, but turned out to be a false alarm.

We also found a number of huge holes, and Nikola was disappointed as it meant someone had come through the area either yesterday night or this morning and may had already found some. 

It was only in the last half hour that we finally got 1 small tiny white Truffle. Strangely, we had walked through that area at the beginning of our trip, but the dogs did not pick up the fragrance, only on our return. 

It is all our being in the right place and right time, Nikola said, as sometimes you may be walking through the same path as another person whom started the search later, and the other individual may find it instead - the truffles only emit smell when they are fully ready to be picked. 

He also said that truffles are a mystery, the black ones can be farmed, and is done in Australia, but the white ones can't and no one has been able to figure out how long a truffle had been growing based on how big or small it is - it could be hours, days etc. I suppose it's just like mushrooms, which truffles are in a similar family. 

I was also surprised to hear that there are truffles which can smell really stinky, but they will not collect those, as Nero had came across one when we were in the forest. 

Nikola's largest find was about 430g. He showed me a picture of his find in 2018 when he led a group of Singaporeans on a Truffle hunting tour and he found a really huge truffle as big as the size of his palm, and that was about 340g. 

It's certainly not easy business, but also has its rewards when there are good finds. No wonder he could survive for so long in this trade. 

He goes out almost every day to hunt for hours, though he usually takes a break from. Christmas till about April, when the next Truffle season comes up. 

He later brought me to a restaurant in Motovun for my Truffle meal, which included a cheese platter with Truffle cheese as an appetiser, and a pasta with truffles.

While I was having lunch, Nikola had a chat with the staff at the restaurant which apparently were friends back in kindergarten. One topic that came up was Salma Hayek - apparently the movie Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard was filmed in different parts of Croatia, including Motovun, and Nikola was contacted to bring Salma and Samuel Jackson on a Truffle tour. Nikola originally didn't want to do the tour and didn't even know who Salma was, but he was keen to meet Samuel, however on the day of the tour, only Salma showed up. 

The staff at the restaurant asked if Salma was bitchy, because she acted bitchy with them, and kept saying "Pendajo" 😂. And they had to put up with her for about 2 months. But according to Nikola, she didn't seem to be act that way with him, while I was surprised she didn't mind walking in the forest with the muddy ground and some paths aren't that easy to manoeuvre either.

I was certainly all muddied up by the time we are done with the tour!