TRIVIA: TRUFFLE

DID YOU KNOW...

That there are several Truffle Festivals around the word? Sarlat, France has a Truffle and Foie Gras Weekend in January.  Italy has several including the Fiera International Tartufo Bianca  D'Alba and the La Sagra del Tartufo Bianco. In Spain, there's the Fitruf International Exhibition. Northern America, there's the Napa Truffle Festival n the US and the first ever British Columbia Truffle Festival held in February earlier this year. Down Under there's the Mundaring Truffle Festival in Perth, Australia.

I can't go to my own festival looking like shit!

That the  ancients Egyptians, Greeks and Romans - used the sac-like truffle mushroom as medicine and aphrodisiac? They believed that it made the male species more potent. It's been  said that Napoleon Bonaparte believed this and consumed truffles to make him more of a man in bed and the battlefield.

It's the truffle trying to get out of my pants.

That only female pigs are used as truffle hogs? The female pig is attracted to its scent which smells a lot like androstenol, the musk-like pheromone that male boars produce and store in their testes, released when they're looking for some sexy time.

Is there a man boar down there lookin' for some sexy time?

That not all truffle oils are made from truffle? Home-made truffle oil is usually olive oil infused with actual truffles. But commercially produced truffle oil uses thioether, a chemical compound which contains a sulfur atom that is responsible for its pungent truffle-like aroma.

 

That truffles were one believed to grow where lightning has struck the ground? The truth is these sturdy fungi grow underground to adapt to environmental conditions like forest fires, winter frost and severe drought.

I will strike the earth with lightning so we can have fabulous truffles for dinner.