Extra Credit-A History of Truffles

I attended A History of Truffles with Bryn at McCutchen House. I figured ooh truffles, you know, the tasty chocolate ones. Turns out, truffles are a member of the fungus family. Although the presentation dragged a bit in the middle, I found it to be very interesting, especially considering I had no clue what an actual truffle was. I learned that there are Summer truffles which are reddish brown and black Winter truffles (which Chef Pernell prefers). Also, large female European pigs were used to hunt for the truffles up to a couple years ago. It’s very important that the pig is a female though because the scent of the truffles serves as a kind of aphrodisiac to them. Now, dogs are more commonly used. Any dog can be trained to hunt for truffles but it’s a very tedious process, so truffle dogs are very expensive. Truffles are also very expensive. Chef Pernell’s students even prepared truffle soup and chocolate truffles for us. The chocolate truffles were very thickly covered in messy cocoa powder, so they did not taste that good to me since cocoa powder isn’t very appealing. The truffle soup was absolutely amazing though! I am really glad that I went to this presentation. I really learned a lot. And I can now say that I know what an actual truffle is.