Okay… the big problem with truffles is they don’t naturally grow here. Or they haven’t been found yet.
My questions about truffles came up because I was listening to something about flying squirrels over the weekend. I like flying squirrels. I try to encourage them. Unfortunately, making sure you have seeds on your feeder at dusk also has the risk of attracting raccoons. I am not a big fan of raccoons, so I tend to leave rather sparse offerings for the flying squirrels, but I like to try to have them drop by.
While they don’t tend to jump out and scream, “look at me!”, they are not overly shy. They are also not as uncommon as many people seem to think. It wasn’t too long ago that people thought I was nuts, talking about flying squirrels. Mostly, they just weren’t looking at the right time.
We have two types of flying squirrels around this area. The northern flying squirrel and the southern flying squirrel. They are fairly similar, but there are slight differences. The thing that caught my interest is that apparently, flying squirrels love truffles. In fact, it seems they are responsible for spreading truffles in some parts of the country, eating the spoors and expelling them elsewhere. So we have flying squirrels around here, do we have truffles?
The problem seems to be the flying squirrels don’t automatically come with truffles. They like them. They just don’t carry them with them wherever they go.
Truffles are known as a largely European delicacy. They are a fungi that grows underground, sort of a subterranean puffball. They are prized for cooking and really expensive.
I’m not sure I’ve every really tasted one. I have eaten things that supposedly had “shaved truffle”, but I can’t remember being blown away by the taste. And at the price… a single truffle once sold for around $60,000… it’s not like I have ever run out and bought a basket of truffles for dinner.
Not that I wouldn’t like to try. If I could just walk out with my favourite truffle pig (or dog) by my side and dig up a bunch.
While these things do grow in parts of Canada, they have yet to be confirmed here. Someone managed to find a few in New Brunswick last year, but none here as yet. Although there are also reports of people trying to grow them around the province.
This seems pretty simple. You just grab an oak tree, rip it up by the roots, dip the roots in truffle spoors and jam the tree back in the ground. Then you just wait for the truffles to grow, Underground. Where you have no idea what’s going on.
So my hope is the flying squirrels will do their thing. The flying squirrels go eat a truffle somewhere, come back to a spot near me, and spread truffle spoors. Truffles will grow and I can try them.
Seems reasonable.
