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The return of the Russian truffle. White truffle: what you need to know about rare mushrooms

Everyone knows that the truffle is the most expensive mushroom in the world. Few people, however, understand truffles. If now at European auctions the price of a kilogram of mushrooms reaches several thousand euros, why was it so often served at the table in tsarist Russia? Are people poor? Are mushrooms rare? And what to do if you find something in the forest that looks like a legendary mushroom - fry or sell? Mycologist Mikhail Vishnevsky, the author of many books, among them Truffles and Other Delicious Mushrooms of Russia, spoke about this on the radio "KP".

SCENT LIKE A BROKEN PERFUME BOTTLE

There are about twenty types of truffles in the world. About half of them are edible, and only 4-5 are delicious. We also grow two: Russian white truffle, which is also called Posadsky or Troitsky, and black summer truffle, which can be found in the south - in the Crimea, on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.

The fruiting of the Russian white began somewhere at the end of August, now he is "earing" with might and main and will do this until about the end of January. And I must say right away that it is not as expensive as everyone thinks. I receive messages several times a day: "I found a truffle, where can I sell it and become a millionaire?" But this Italian white truffle costs from two to four thousand euros per kilogram, and a kilogram of Russian white truffle can be sold for a maximum of four to five thousand rubles ...

Why are Italians so valued?

For the smell. If you cut off a piece of this mushroom - yes, if you just bring it into warm room- the effect will be as if you broke a bottle of perfume. Anyone who has ever encountered this fragrance will never forget it. In this sense, the black Perigord truffle, the second in value, approaches white Italian. They are consumed not as food, but as a very expensive condiment. By the way, the smell of that black summer truffle that grows in the south of Russia is also well felt; however, in the Crimea it is small and dry, but in the vicinity of Sochi, Lazarevsky, Tuapse - where it is more humid - it is more comfortable for him, he has larger fruits, and almost everything is in order with their aroma.

And the Russian white truffle begins to give out the "correct" smell only at the stage of full maturity, almost before it starts to rot. At this point, he is almost inedible. But for more early stages this is a truly delicious mushroom, somewhat similar to meat and morels with lines. Before the revolution, it was collected in monstrous quantities - the Moscow region alone produced 100 tons per year, and in total about a thousand tons came out in the European part of Russia, and at least a third was exported. It grew even within the boundaries of modern Moscow - where the ZIL plant is now, before the revolution there was Tyufelnaya Grove, and according to one version, it was there that Muscovites went to collect it, hence the name, from which for some reason the letter "r" fell out. It was ordinary food. But then truffles became a symbol of something old-fashioned, bourgeois, anti-proletarian...

Nevertheless, mushrooms have not died out, they have not gone away - there are still a huge number of them in the forests. If someone launched a campaign under the conditional slogan "We will revive the Russian truffle", he will fill the shelves in a few years.

- So how to find him in the forest?

It is very easy: unlike the vast majority of truffles, Posad truffles are very willing to come to the surface. Can you imagine what Jerusalem artichoke is? Here the truffle looks about the same. Like a potato, but white and bumpy, with all sorts of protrusions. I first found it by accident, about ten years ago, in the Vladimir region: I was looking for porcini mushrooms and suddenly noticed that some strange bug was sticking out of the ground ... Once you see it, you won’t confuse it with anything. Including with a false raincoat, or scleroderma - inedible mushroom with light skin and dark flesh with a marble pattern on the cut. On the Internet, by the way, these sclerodermas are often sold under the guise of "real truffles" - and the sellers themselves are sure that they have found a delicacy. Real Posadsky truffle on the cut is white.

Next to the truffle, you will surely find several others - it does not like to grow alone. But we must remember that not all truffles climb up - most remain in the ground, and they must be sought with an animal.

THE PIG STRIVES TO EAT THE TRUFFLE ITSELF

- Everyone is sure that truffles are harvested with the help of pigs.

One of the components of the truffle aroma contains a substance that is almost similar in smell to the sex hormone of wild boars. Female pigs react very positively to this - they easily, quickly and efficiently look for mushrooms. But they can only be smelled at close range. And besides, when they find it, they strive to immediately devour it. Their services in the search have long been abandoned, replaced by dogs, whose scent is incomparably thinner. In European countries, where there are people who make a living looking for truffles, puppies are trained from infancy: they add a decoction of truffle to the milk they are fed, tie pieces of mushrooms to toys that they throw at them and which they bring back to the owner ... You can easily train a puppy and to search for Russian white truffles - this is exactly how their collection was practiced before the revolution.

- Where should a Muscovite go for truffles?

Truffles love fairly light soils, good aeration, lighting, and moisture. Now it is best to drive a hundred kilometers and further from Moscow, to the Moscow or Vladimir regions, to fields that are separated by windproof forest belts. Fairly wide, heterogeneous, where the Christmas tree, and pine, and birch, and larch, and aspen grow. Now, at the beginning of November, there highly likely Russian white truffles will sit. In the 19th century, they wrote: "it grows even better when the snow attacks and melts again."

- And how to cook them?

With our truffle, you need to do the same as with morels and lines. Truffles, in fact, are the same morels that have gone underground in the process of evolution. Even if you take an expensive white Italian, cut it into thick slices and fry it, you get just a morel to taste. To surprise with our Russian white truffle, it is enough to find a cookbook by Elena Molokhovets on the Internet - she has about 50 recipes for truffle dishes, of which 47 belong to the Russian white truffle.

BY THE WAY

* Truffles were known in ancient Mesopotamia, their references dating back to the 20th century BC have been preserved. Of course, the ancient Greeks also knew them - Plutarch, for example, believed that truffles are born in the earth as a result of a lightning strike on moist soil.

* In Italian "truffle" - tartufo; It was in honor of this mushroom that Molière named the hero of his comedy Tartuffe, or the Deceiver.

* The word "potato" came to us from German language. And kartoffel is nothing more than a distorted Italian tartufo: a vegetable brought from America outwardly reminded the Germans of a well-known mushroom.

Very lively and attractive group.

Its founder, Natalya Novitskaya, was fascinated by the idea of finding a Russian truffle. Truffles are described by Pushkin - well, they were not brought from Europe at that time. Natalya got excited about the idea in 2012, in 2014 she found and brought them to Moscow. It so happened that Anatoly Komm was the first to pick up Crimean truffles in Moscow. The mushrooms arrived by train, Natalya took them and went to the meeting. "And when Comm nodded, I exhaled."

Then there was interest in other exotic mushrooms, then in general to wild plants (wild, not cultivated crops). With each new immersion in the topic, it became clear how rich and little mastered this layer is in Russia. And in the same way it became clear how wild it was in terms of logistics, relations, standards.
European buyers have already paved the way to many points in the country, but there is really no demand and normal channels for production and marketing within the country. Exotic mushrooms and wild plants willingly use serious restaurants. And they are almost impossible to sell at retail - people do not understand how to approach them, and they are more willing to go to a restaurant so that the chef makes a decision for them.

About the market: "What an amazing market it is, if there is a USP - to be normal"

The market for the sale of exotic mushrooms and wild plants is quite wild. There are assemblers in the field, they all work with different quality. There are local resellers, most of whom are eager to raise the price by any means. There are poor logistics channels and customs, which make deliveries unpredictable, some of the goods are lost along the way. There are restaurants that cancel orders, and individuals who seem to be interested, but they need a little bit to try, you can’t sell that much. There are crazy stories with kidnappings, deceptions and other things. Until recently, another story was the resale of Russian truffles as European ones - neither sellers nor buyers appreciated the fact that they were "their own".
When foreign buyers come to the market for wild plants, at first they do not want any intermediaries, they want to do everything themselves. And then they come and say, “We want to work with you because you are normal.”

Russian wild plants in the company's portfolio

Russian black truffle (Tuber aestivum): South of the European part of the Russian Federation, Crimea, Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.
Russian white truffle. It occurs in the center of the European zone, the middle Volga region, Moscow, Tula, Smolensk, Vladimir, Oryol regions, in the Crimea.
Posadsky truffle. It grows in the Moscow region and the Vladimir region. It is a relative of noble truffles, but does not have a characteristic smell.
Black chanterelle, Far Eastern blackberry, gray-pink fly agaric, white elm oyster mushroom, parasol mushroom. Bracken, nuts, berries. And even snails.

Interesting Facts

Mushrooms vary little in different regions. If this is Tuber Aestum, then it will look like itself both in France and in the Crimea. Natalia conducted blind tastings of Russian and European truffles, and without knowledge of the place of origin it is difficult to notice the difference. This was recognized even by Italian chefs.
- Morels and chanterelles are leaving en masse for France. From my last trip to France, I brought a bag of dried morels. There is a non-zero probability that these are Altai - just taken out and packed already there.

Where in Moscow you can try Russian mushrooms

Tea height - ice cream with Crimean truffle
During the season (from June to December) Russian truffles are on the menu of many restaurants. Last year we were in "Italian", "White Rabbit", "Honest Kitchen", "IlForno" and so on.
"Fahrenheit" - black fox, meadow honey agaric, yellow-footed fox
Anatoly Komm - morels, salted mushrooms
"Metropol", "National", "Turandot"
(I will say for myself that these are respected places, but it is not true that wild plants are available mainly in expensive restaurants. After all, it should be otherwise).

About future

The market for wild plants is huge and unsettled. I would like to bring civility to it: to make the collection more gentle, logistics convenient, partnership relations. To form assemblers, to create sales networks in the regions. You can engage in targeted cultivation of some mushrooms - for example, in the Crimea there are conditions for laying truffle gardens.

Where to buy mushrooms and other products of "Russian mushrooms"

Practice has shown that these products are difficult to sell at retail. the largest retail there were eight days at the Danilovsky market on the eve of the new year. Due to the crisis, many restaurants canceled their pre-orders and the company became the proud owner of 15 kilograms of truffles. To get acquainted with the product, they made homemade mayonnaise with truffle, they gave it a try on a piece of black bread. And the buyers … really asked for such mayonnaise or some kind of truffle paste, but did not dare to buy the mushrooms themselves.

Historical frame:

If you want to try interesting Russian wild plants, look for them in restaurants.
If you want to buy a lot (for example, a kilogram of truffle or five liters of pine cone jam), or you know how to supply wild plants, or you want to invest in a project, write to Natalia by mail [email protected] or in a personal on Facebook.

The white truffle grows in its natural environment underground, among the roots of trees. Finding these unique mushrooms is quite difficult, so dogs and even domestic pigs that have undergone special training are involved in the search. Truffles are recognized as the most expensive and valuable delicacy. The tuberous body of the fungus is of value. No one has yet been able to determine the number of types of truffle, but among all known today, the most popular is the white one, growing in Piedmont, Italy.

Outwardly, this valuable mushroom is not at all attractive, but it is not for nothing that it is called the most fragrant. It emits such a strong smell that it is simply impossible to confuse it with any other species, but it looks like ordinary tubers and is nothing like other mushrooms. It is famous for its meaty juicy pulp and slightly gristly texture. Its surface may be smooth, cracked or covered with small "warts". On the cut, the flesh is visible with a marbled pattern, which is emphasized by dark veins. You can determine how fresh a white truffle is by gently pressing on it with your fingers. The soft juicy mushroom is ready to eat, but if it is dry, then it is no longer suitable for food. Such a mushroom can be called old.

It grows in the deciduous forests of Switzerland and northern Italy. You can find it on the territory of our country. The white truffle grows in Russia, and the places where it grows include:

the Volga region;
Moscow and Vladimir regions;
Smolensk and Tula regions;
Oryol Region.

The tuber, the body of the white truffle mushroom, reaches sizes from 5 to 15 cm and weighs the largest almost 500 g. You can find such specimens only if you know exactly where it grows White mushroom truffle. You need to search at a depth of up to 15 cm underground at the roots deciduous trees. Truffles are often confused with Jerusalem artichoke because of their resemblance. A distinctive feature is a pronounced aroma.

It is impossible to find the white Tasmanian truffle because this mushroom does not grow in the Southern Hemisphere. The name "Tasmanian" is erroneous; in fact, there is a Tuscan species that is especially popular.

Despite the existence of certain difficulties that truffle seekers face, the Tuscan white truffle attracts mushroom hunters, promising excellent earnings, since its cost reaches 200 euros per kilogram. This mushroom is recognized as the most delicious and fragrant, and most gourmets say that they do not eat the truffle itself, but its unique smell.

The Russian white truffle has a meaty rather than a mushroom taste, but its aroma is in no way inferior to the species growing outside our homeland.

Another important difference that can be considered a feature of the white truffle is seasonality. They try this mushroom from October to January. In Russia, the so-called summer truffle grows, which can be found near oaks and hazels, but Piedmontese grows near hawthorn and linden, mountain ash, poplar and birch.

Growing at home

Many people try to grow a white truffle at home, because this is not only a sure way to treat relatives and friends with such a rare delicacy, but also an opportunity to earn a lot of money. However, the growing process is associated with a lot of difficulties and problems, so few succeed in achieving what they want. The difficulty lies in creating conditions as close as possible to natural, natural.

It all starts with the purchase of mycelium in any specialized store. The basis for cultivation can be a walnut tree, which was previously grafted with white truffle spores. The room must be chosen one in which there is no daylight, air practically does not move, there are no other plants. When choosing a soil, it is important to establish the level of alkalinity, which can be easily raised with the addition of lime fertilizers.

In the prepared soil, you can safely plant walnut trees grafted with white truffle spores. Having provided appropriate care, one can hope for the appearance of the first harvest, however, the wait will be quite long.

What to cook

Cooking a mushroom that is so difficult to get is not always easy. It is able to change both taste and aroma depending on the environment in which it is immersed. So, for example, after a white truffle has been dipped in water for a while, it is able to acquire the taste of soy sauce. To properly and tasty cook white truffle, it is important not only to know its features, but also to skillfully combine it with other products. It is no more difficult than, and this is the only way to emphasize and enhance all the positive qualities of the mushroom.

Some interesting recipes

Recipes, according to which a wide variety of dishes are prepared, have been inherited by modern chefs from masters of the 19th century. With their help, today you can learn such an unusual taste of the mushroom, understand all its advantages, feel the uniqueness in combination with meat or dairy products.

Truffles with beef

This mushroom is used to prepare the most delicious dishes, including beef tenderloin with white truffle. The chef will need:

fresh meat pulp, which is used as beef tenderloin in an amount of at least 300 g;
white truffle - about 5 g, 40 g of paste and 5 g of truffle oil;
35% cream - 20 ml;
some dry wine;
not more than 10 g of butter;
foie gras - about 40 g;
demiglace sauce - no more than 20 g.

For decoration and as a side dish, you will need cherry tomatoes and arugula. Having disassembled the meat into steaks about 2 cm thick, it is fried on the grill, pre-greased with oil and laid on parchment paper. Truffle is also fried, cut into plates and greased with oil. Foie gras is also fried through parchment paper, laid on a hot frying pan, cut into two parts and breaded in flour.

After frying, put all the products in a pan with butter, add wine, water, pepper and simmer lightly. Now add the sauce, cream, truffle paste and truffle oil and simmer again. Spreading on a dish, first put the meat, then the foie gras, pour over the sauce and put the truffle pieces on top. As a finishing touch, you can put arugula leaves and cherry tomatoes on the dish.

mushroom cheese

No less popular is a dish like cheese with truffles. Its peculiarity is that the cheese itself has a unique aroma, and the smell of truffle makes it completely luxurious. This cheese tastes a little like other varieties due to inclusions of truffles. Cheese becomes a good addition when served with grapes or wine, and a great independent dish.

Soup with pumpkin and mushrooms

Pumpkin puree soup with truffles is not only different palatability but also a very original flavor. The smell of pumpkin and mushroom is a truly unique combination. In addition, in terms of its nutritional value, this dish cannot be compared with any other. Its preparation does not require special skills, and the result will exceed all expectations.

After frying a small finely chopped onion in hot butter, add about 500 g of peeled and diced pumpkin to it, pour in a glass of water and leave to cook on low heat for 20 minutes. After that, the contents of the pan and 100 g of mascarpone are placed in a blender, ground, bringing to a puree state, and poured into plates, rubbing truffles on top. This soup is considered one of the most interesting and delicious dishes of Italian cuisine.

What is garlic truffle?

We don't have garlic truffle. Garlic truffle is Central and Eastern Europe. Yes, there are truffles that smell interesting. There are truffles that smell like oil. There are truffles that smell, sorry, feces. And outwardly they do not differ in any way from the classic black truffle. They are hated by truffle pickers with dogs, because the dog, having found such a truffle, happily digs it up and after that it is no longer suitable for picking on that day. Garlic truffle is Hungary, Romania, Serbia, although it is also found in Eastern France and Northern Italy. Once we were given a rotten mushroom as a sample, which suggested that the garlic truffle does not end in Moldova and Romania, but also grows on our side of the Carpathians. But there has been no real discovery yet.

By the way, we brought sweet Hungarian truffle from Hungary. This is the exotic that we do not have. The sweet truffle is originally a Hungarian endemic. There is literary information that two finds were made in Eastern Spain. The sweet truffle forms a symbiosis with the pseudo-robinia bean tree, which is quite sweet in itself. The Hungarian truffle is sweeter than sugar. There it is traditionally thrown into coffee, tea, ice cream, jams are made from it ...

You take it, you start chewing it, and in the first seconds you get the feeling that you are chewing a truffle, and then you realize that you are eating such a sweet thing that it will become bitter a little more. The Hungarian truffle is versatile. If ordinary truffles cannot be frozen, then it can be frozen and thawed without losing the sweetness. The one who is engaged in the production of chocolate took a batch of such truffles from us for experiments, perhaps in a year we will begin regular deliveries.

Can you tell me how the truffle hunt goes? After all, there is hunting with pigs, hunting with dogs, there was even once hunting with bears ...

Yes, but neither pigs nor bears took root. First of all, because if for a dog this is just a search item, then for a pig or a bear it is food. And if, say, taking a truffle from a pig is even more or less real, then taking it from a bear is quite difficult. Even taking into account the fact that in childhood they were all deprived of their teeth. Our pickers walk with dogs. There are guys who already know the old places, where to look and how they look, without animals. In principle, this is normal when it comes to black truffle, because our summer black truffle is much more likely than others to come to the surface.

The dog is a truffle hunter.

I mean, is it visible?

Yes, it is visible. Or it bursts the ground and a crack appears, in the depths of which it can be seen, if you know how to look ...

This concerns the black truffle, but the white one?

The white townsman almost always climbs outside. Finding him is not a problem at all. But with a dog, of course, it's easier. He half, approximately, crawls out, half remains in the ground. Those pickers who did not have dogs, a hundred years ago, distinguished white truffles into "riding" and "deep". The “deep” truffle was much more appreciated - although it was smaller in size, it was tastier and more aromatic, since it had not yet come into contact with the atmosphere. Then they searched for him with pigs, and with goats, and with cows.

And with cows?

Yes, they drove the herd, only not across the field, but along the edge of the forest. They also began to dig up and eat truffles in the same way. They were driven away and collected truffles.

It’s just that there is an established idea that they go for truffles with a trained pig ...

The right pig smells a truffle somewhere from twenty steps. For a dog, 50-100 steps is normal. But on the other hand, a truffle pig is incomparably cheaper than a truffle dog. That is, if a truffle puppy costs two thousand euros or more, then a truffle pig costs only three times more than a regular pig. And they are chosen in the same way as hunting dogs. The buyer comes to the owner of a truffle pig, which has farrowed, and a truffle is placed at a distance of a meter from the brood. Whoever crawled to the truffle first, they buy it.

I don't have a dog. I don't like them, even more than cats. And I actually hate cats. Fish are fine, they cannot leave the aquarium, a bird in a cage is also tolerable. All my finds were made exclusively with the help of hands and feet. You just need to know what you are looking for. I discovered my first white town truffle at the beginning of the millennium, that is, more than ten years ago, in the Vladimir region. Then I decided to work out a little underground mushrooms. At different periods of my life I was engaged in different groups of mushrooms - well, it’s impossible to do something in one! Bored. For the last four years I have been doing underground mushrooms in the background.

And what other underground mushrooms, besides truffles, are edible?

Well, for the most part they don't. There are some underground puffballs that can be eaten at a young age, but they are just mushrooms, there are relatives of puffballs, there is a garlic truffle, for example, and there is a false puffball, which at a young age has a spicy-garlic taste. And so - first of all, these are classic truffles, that is, black and white, which belong to the genus Tuber and our townsman Choiromyces. In addition, they are distant relatives of lines and morels. They are all, one way or another, edible, but they have a size at best - with Walnut if they are giants, otherwise they are fungi the size of a fingernail. The only exception is the roots, relatives of porcini mushrooms that have returned underground. They can reach the size of a tennis ball. But they don't have much taste. We even have one underground russula and one underground milky, these are cap mushrooms, which, in the process of evolution, decided to better protection dispute to go underground. After all, mushrooms were originally all underground - they had the main task - to protect spores. Then many of them got to the surface, but some of them came back again.

Are truffles mushrooms that have decided not to get to the surface?

Yes, there are some speculations about this. There is no fully confirmed opinion whether this was really the case. Someone believes that there were originally two lines, one was originally underground, and the second was originally aboveground, and most of them remained so.

Michael, what is your favorite truffle?

Our white, of course, because it is food, if we are talking about taste. After all, classic truffles, by and large, have no taste. In general, this is a rather difficult moment - to separate the taste from the smell, where one ends and the other begins. For example, if a classic black or white truffle is cooked as if it were ordinary mushrooms, that is, fried or boiled, then they will taste indistinguishable from morels. Actually, it is the smell of classic truffles that is valued. Therefore, I love our white Posadsky most of all - this is normal food with taste.

You have found a black fox in Altai, which is considered endemic in Europe. How did you do it?

Well, that's what they think. We have plenty of it, it's just not everywhere, and it doesn't grow every year. I myself have been collecting it for many years in the Vladimir and Tver provinces, but of course there is much less of it than in southern Siberia, where it can be collected and harvested in any quantities. This year we have prepared very little of it. They offered it to restaurants, and now everyone takes it. By the way, almost all the yellow chanterelle served in European restaurants is Russian or Belarusian.

Truffle is rare and expensive, which grows at the roots of trees underground. Some of its varieties are also found on the territory of certain regions of Russia, although it is very difficult to find this valuable mushroom due to its growing conditions. But luck can smile at the mushroom picker during a “quiet” hunt. Therefore, it does not hurt at all to look at the photo of what the truffle looks like and find out at what time of the year it is harvested.

Truffle grows underground, forming a close symbiosis with the roots of certain tree species. Its appearance is quite unsightly, somewhat reminiscent of Jerusalem artichoke tubers. The surface of these fungi can be smooth, furrowed or warty-tuberous. In color, depending on the species, they are different: black, white, reddish-brown. Usually grow in a family of several fruit bodies. Mushrooms the size of a nut or a grape are more common. But they can be the size of a large apple and even more.

There are more than a hundred varieties of the mushroom, some of which are inedible. And to those who have the greatest nutritional value include the following types of truffles:

Black - its other name is "perigorsky". Considered one of the most valuable types of truffles, it is found mainly in France. It is characterized by a brownish-black color, exquisite aroma, excellent taste, harvested in winter.
Winter - one of the varieties of black truffles. It grows mainly in France, as well as in Switzerland. May also be found in other places. Ripening time - from November to March.

There are many varieties of truffle

Italian or Piedmontese - refers to the white varieties, one of the most expensive.
White - by appearance resembles potato tubers, occurs infrequently, refers to edible mushrooms 4 categories.
Summer - they also call it black Russian. It is considered a delicacy, although not the most valuable among the black varieties.

There are other edible varieties of this valuable mushroom. The species composition is very wide. They are found on almost all continents, they prefer loose soils of calcareous or ferruginous type. All truffles grow underground at a depth of about 15-20 cm from the surface. More often they form a symbiosis with the root system of deciduous trees: oaks, beeches, hornbeams, birches, hazels. Much less often, truffles settle in coniferous forests under pines, firs or junipers.

What kind of truffles grow in Russia

The two main varieties of these mushrooms from those that are found on the territory of our country are:

Black summer truffle (or Russian).
White truffle.

Black summer truffle can be found on the Black Sea coast of Russia near the Caucasus and in the suburbs of Sochi, as well as on the territory of the Crimean peninsula. It grows mostly in deciduous and mixed forests. Almost never found in coniferous forests. Can be found under the roots of oak, beech, hornbeam. They also grow in symbiosis with the root system of hazel and pine.

summer truffle

White truffle is found in a number of central regions of our country. They can be found in Tula, Orlovskaya, Vladimirskaya, Smolensk regions, as well as in the middle Volga region. Occasionally they are found in the Moscow region and even in the Leningrad region. They prefer to settle under oaks, they can grow in the roots of trees of other hardwoods. In addition to these varieties, in our country occasionally there are others. Black winter truffles are found in the mountainous Crimea, and red truffles are found in some places in Siberia.

Attention! If you are lucky enough to find any of the varieties of truffles in the forest, you need to dig them out of the ground very carefully, otherwise you can damage the mycelium and root system tree.

Truffle harvesting: when and how it happens

Black summer or Russian truffle grows quite close to the surface of the earth. The season for collecting this variety of mushrooms falls on summer time and the very beginning of autumn. The ripening of black winter truffles falls on January-March. And white truffles ripen from mid-autumn to early winter. The collection of mushrooms of this variety is carried out mainly in the second half of October.

white truffle

It is extremely difficult to search for truffles because of their secretive location. Finding them on your own without proper training is almost impossible. Sometimes mushrooms can appear above the ground, but, as a rule, at this time they already become inedible. The search for mushrooms can be done with the help of animals specially trained for this purpose - dogs or pigs, which look for truffles by smell. Some especially experienced mushroom pickers find truffles by some signs. In the location of the mushrooms, vegetation is usually stunted, and the soil in such areas is of an ash-grayish hue.

Advice. Above the ground in the place where these mushrooms grow, you can usually see a swarm of midges. This feature is often used by experienced mushroom pickers when pinpointing the exact location of truffles.

Finding truffles is a difficult task even for an experienced mushroom picker. Only some of them are still lucky, and they manage to find such a valuable trophy. And the difficulties in the search are fully justified by the exquisite taste and value of these mushrooms.