truffle hunting in Istria

Thanks to Tournant and their amazing open fire workshop this September in Istria I experienced my first ever truffle hunting. We stayed for 4 days in beautiful villa in Livade overlooking hills of Motovu. Such a magical scenery to wake up to, covered with morning mist.

Beside amazing food, great company and beautiful nature we did excursions every day. One of my favorite was truffle hunting operated by Karlić family.

First they showed us their property and made for us some delicious food; scrambled eggs with truffles and some sweets combined with chocolate spread mixed with truffles.

Most of the families who run this kind of business have their own forests where they search for truffles. We went in the forest with our guide and two beautiful dogs trained for truffle hunt. Their names are Leila and Candy. Candy that day wasn’t really into work so Leila saved the day. 🙂

Because they grow underground they’re very difficult to find. But fortunately, truffles have a particularly pungent perfume that mimics certain hormones given off by pigs so other pigs can be trained to hunt them. Dogs are also used to go truffle hunting in Croatia since pigs tend to eat the flavorsome fungus, whereas dogs will give it up to their master if presented with a treat.

And we were lucky enough to have  a nice weather while we were in the forest as the rain started just a few minutes after we came back to villa.

It took me some time to edit the photos and wrote this short blog post but really hope you will enjoy this photo story as these photos are one of my favorite so far.

I really enjoy the whole experience and we were lucky enough to find some truffles as well (thanks to Leila). Now I want to hear you; have you ever tried truffle hunting ?If yes I want to hear all about it.

Much love

Marko

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