Tours of Umbria Italy

Video of Truffle Hunting Trip in Umbria

A video of a recent truffle hunting trip in the forests above Spoleto:

Some Truffle and Truffle Hunting Information

I have posted some truffle and truffle hunting information on our website as a beginners guide to truffle hunting (a section of which I reproduce below). The intention is to add to it over time...

What is a truffle?
Truffles (or tartufi in Italian) are a kind of fungus, related to mushrooms, which grow underground among the roots of trees. Truffles live in a symbiotic partnership with the host trees. In exchange for nutrients provided by the truffle the tree provides food in the form of carbohydrates for the truffle. There are many different types of truffle but the most sought-after are the Tuber magnatum (the precious white truffle) and Tuber melanosporum (the precious black truffle) which are found mainly in Italy and France.

What kind of truffles can be found in Umbria?
Around Spoleto the main kind of truffle is the precious black truffle (Tuber melanosporum) known as the Perigord black truffle but which is also known in Italy as the Tartufo di Spoleto or Tartufo di Norcia. The other main edible truffles are the black summer truffle also known as the scorzone (Tuber aestivum) and its close cousin the uncinato (Tuber uncinatum). A less precious kind of white truffle called bianchetto (Tuber borchii) can also be found.

How are truffles found?
In order for its spores to be scattered truffles rely on being eaten by animals. In order to attract animals they have a particular smell that appeals not only to wild animals but also to chefs and gourmets. The distinctive aroma can also be detected by trained dogs who show their master to the spot where the ripe truffle is to be found. Truffle hunting pigs were used traditionally as they have a natural fondness for truffles and so do not need as much training but it is actually very rare for pigs to be used any more. As well as being harder to transport and less mobile then dogs pigs are also more likely to eat the truffles they find whereas dogs are happy with a piece of biscuit in exchange for their find.

Are there other ways to find truffles?
Digging holes randomly where truffles have been found previously may turn up some truffles but is ultimately counter-productive as it damages the root system of the tree and so reduces the future yield of truffles. While humans can only smell the distinctive truffle smell from up close there are sometimes other indications that can hint at the presence of black truffles such as "burnt ground" or brulee around the tree where the truffle has suppressed weeds and competition from other plants around the tree roots. A small mound made by an expanding truffle can also sometimes be detected by an experienced truffle hunter. It is even possible, with the aid of a long stick to disturb the forest floor and a keen eye, to detect truffles by looking out for a special kind of fly that lands on or hovers near areas where there are ripe truffles.

   

Photos of Truffle Hunting in Umbria

I came across (thanks to the blog of Gareth Renowden, author of the excellent "The Truffle Book") some nice photos of truffle hunting in Umbria near Spoleto in the Australian "Regional Food" magazine:

http://www.regionalfood.com.au/RF2/mmedia/truffles/default.asp

Pressing our Umbrian Olive Oil

After the picking it was off to the olive oil press... The olive oil is cold pressed (you can see it trickling down through the pressing mats in one part) and has a delicious peppery taste. After we got the olive oil it was was straight back home to toast some bruschette over the wood fire with the freshly pressed olive oil drizzled on top. Delicious!

Olive Picking in Umbria

Last week we finally got round to doing some olive picking. It was fairly late in the season but it was a beautiful crisp sunny day which helped (along with the steady stream of espressos and treats that got passed up the tree during the course of the day). Although by no means an expert I managed (half way up the olive tree) to juggle the video camera and the little rake to get these shots which is about as close as you can get to olive picking in Umbria without actually being there! The sound like marbles dropping is actually the olives falling into the basket I had around my neck -the rest fell on the net below and were gathered from there.

Video How to Buy Truffles

A short video explaining what you should be looking for when buying truffles:

http://www.chow.com/stories/11398

Of course you can become a bit of an expert yourself in buying truffles on our Truffle Hunting in Umbria Tour which we are organising to coincide with the Nero Norcia black truffle festival at the end of February 2009.

More black celery in Trevi…

We had another trip back to Trevi last weekend with friends for a dinner in a medieval tavern as part of the Sedano Nero sagra. Unsurprisingly the menu was very heavily biased towards all thing celery with bruschette with celery, celery parmigiana (in a tomato and parmesan cheese sauce) and of course a side order of “cazzimperio” –the tenderest part of the celery served raw with a pinzimonio dipping sauce (Trevi extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper).  We even finished the meal off with celery ice cream which was surprisingly good -the texture of coconut ice cream with a very slight hint of celery –almost like a sorbet.

 

  

       

 

Slow Food and Black Celery (Sedano Nero di Trevi)

On Sunday we visited the Black Celery (Sedano Nero di Trevi) “Sagra” (festival) in Trevi. Trevi is a lovely hilltop town not far from Spoleto which is famous for its olive oil but also for its black celery which is one of the products included in Slow Food’s Ark of Taste which was set up by the Slow Food foundation to protect and promote extraordinary food products from around the world.

The black celery of Trevi is a special tender type of celery which doesn’t have the usual celery “strings”. The cultivation of the black celery follows a centuries old method. The seeds are sowed on a waning moon in the period in the lead up to Easter. After three months the young celery is planted out, fertilized and watered daily. In October when the celery is mature (becoming a dark green colour hence the name “black” celery) the plants are tied and covered in soil so that only the leaves are showing and they are left for 15 or 20 days like this before being harvested ready for the Black Celery Sagra in Trevi. The celery is only grown in a mall area of land near the Clitunno river and it is said that the particular soil contributes to the particular characteristics of the celery. The black celery of Trevi is something that is used when in season in our Italian Cooking Lessons.

As with most sagre in Italy there was plenty of food and wine on offer. Not only did we come home with several bunches of this special celery but we also bagged a delicious piece of Formaggio di Fossa cheese, a sheep’s milk cheese from Le Marche region which is matured in a hole underground (where legend has it the cheese was hidden from invading armies).

 

                

Chocoday at Caprai

Yesterday, 12^th October was Chocoday in Italy. Chocoday is a day dedicated to “pure chocolate” (obtained from cocoa without additional fats and vegetable oils) And is supported by the Italian government. It is an important prelude to the upcoming Eurochocolate in Perugia which is now less than two weeks away. This year, Montefalco wine producer Caprai were presenting new wine-themed chocolates in conjunction with Brucocioc (a well-known chocolatier from Le Marche who creates il Cioccolato Di BruCo) so we decided to head to the Caprai winery and check it out. The chocolates treats were made of dark chocolate and had two fillings. One was filled with a type of grappa cream and reminded me a little of the whiskey chocolates that you get in Ireland and the other was a praline filled with Montefalco wine and also included a piece of Sagrantino grape and a very small (deliberately) inserted grape seed. The chocolates were served up with Sagrantino passito and grappa. It was a very pleasant way to spend a beautiful October day with temperatures in the mid-20s in the elegant surroundings of the Caprai vineyards. Unfortunately for everyone who wasn’t in attendance, I think that the guests pretty much consumed the entire first run production!

               

A cooking tour and a truffle hunt

Last week we had a custom small group tour who, from a base in Spoleto, explored Umbria, taking in Assisi, Perugia, Montefalco, Bevagna and Norcia and also spent a couple of days in Rome. Together with the Italian cooking lessons the highlight of the trip for me was the truffle hunt in the hills of Umbria which we went on. We set off on a beautiful crisp autumn morning for the hills overlooking the valley of Spoleto accompanied by a local truffle hunter and his two dogs. The views alone would have been worth the trip. One of the dogs was an experienced truffle hunter but the other was only a pup and so the older dog kept “stealing” the truffles on the younger dog. Apparently it will take another couple of years before the younger dog is fully trained and will be able to stand his own. The precious black truffles (Tuber melanosporum) are not in season yet so we had to make do with the summer truffles (Tuber aestivum) but it was a fairly successful hunt and we found more than a dozen truffles (albeit fairly small ones). The truffle hunter was off to Rome the next day to a couple of the capital’s top restaurants to deliver truffles but luckily we didn’t have to go that far so, after a quick clean (for both us and the truffles), we headed to a restaurant to enjoy a truffle lunch using the truffles we had found.