“When you find a truffle, it always feels like striking gold,” says Dorset-based Sasha Dorey, a truffle-sourcing pro, who goes by the business name of The Truffle Huntress, working together with her three dogs: Ralf, Minnie and Benta.
She supplies these prized seasonal finds to, among others, our chefs here at THE PIG-on the beach. “My dogs are an Italian breed called Lagotto Romagnolo, which looks quite similar to a cockapoo,” says Sasha. “They were originally bred as gun dogs, to be duck hunters, but almost became extinct at one point, until people realised they were also incredible truffle hunters.”
The dogs follow the truffles’ distinctive scent to pinpoint places where they grow underground. Truffles, a type of fungi with a complex taste and a distinct and (to many) appealing aroma, have a symbiotic relationship with the roots of trees, particularly hazel, beech and holm oak.
Some landowners and gardeners plant dedicated truffle orchards to encourage them (typically of fast-growing hazel), but truffles will also appear unannounced.
“We tend to think of truffles as being associated with other countries, such as Italy, but there are truffles here in the UK and there was a big truffle-hunting industry here in the 1800s,” says Sasha. And now could be the time to revive that.
“Climate change means that some truffle orchards in the Mediterranean now sometimes require more irrigation than they used to,” she explains, which has meant a rise in interest in the suitability for truffles of the current UK climate, “where we have more rain than other counties. Truffles also like alkaline soil, ideally limestone or chalk, such as where beech trees grow. And wild animals such as squirrels and badgers spread the truffles’ spores.”
Sasha, a keen cook and a fan of the complex, umami taste of fresh truffles, first decided to look for them herself with her previous dog, Delphi. “I trained her in my house to look for the scent of a hidden truffle, and to my surprise the first place that she found one outside the house was in my own garden. I had no idea they were there, so it was exciting.”
From then on, her calling as a truffle hunter seemed fated. She uses simple, traditional tools to carefully retrieve the truffles her dogs find. “The season for truffle hunting varies each year with the weather, but it’s typically September to February,” says Sasha, “with Valentine’s Day being the last hurrah. Truffles do not store well, so chefs like to use them in season.”
Naturally, Sasha, who is based on the Isle of Purbeck, likes to pop into THE PIG-on the beach to taste what our chefs have created with her truffles. “The team at THE PIG make a fantastic truffle risotto, for example, and they call it Sasha and Ralf’s risotto: I was particularly pleased to see my dog get his name on the dish!”
Sasha says that only one of her dogs, Benta, who is the youngest at a year old, seems keen on actually eating the truffles herself – but that wouldn’t be a great business plan. “I persuade her to have a bit of sausage as her treat instead.”
Look out for truffles on our menu this autumn-winter season at THE PIG-on the beach, and find out more about Sasha here.
