Truffles...

Truffles. I had never even heard of such a thing until I played Farmville. 

When you click on a pig, you harvest truffles. This never made any sense to me. Now, FV has advanced to putting the pigs in a pen, you make slop and then they go HUNT for truffles. I thought the friggin pig produced them.

I never ever hardly watch the Food Network. Well, today I did. Iron Chef something...

They had to use TRUFFLES as the main ingredient. The whole show was about truffles. Black ones, white ones, these ones and those ones and on and on. Truffle oil, truffle this, truffle that. I go "yuck" at mushrooms. For some reason I was interested. Flipping between truffles and picking paint colors on HGTV (boring). 

These dishes were gorgeous. I wanted to throw up, but I appreciate the "plate" competition. I mean the people talking on the show were going on and on about how they smelled...well I would smell musty too if I lived in the dirt. 

Well, golly...the photos I had for today's post which was going to be Yard Sale, just didn't work. Just darn pre-school ugly photos. You get this one, which I'm stealing. Well actually I'm not. 

Growing this little booger must be Top Secret. I can't even right click on the photo. Nada. The Garland Truffle Farm, right down the road about an hour, probably has 24/7 security guards, augmented by F-15 fighter jets from Goldsboro to shoot down interested loons like me. I mean this crap is protected! I'm listing the website but for goodness sake don't tell anyone you got it from me. I mean they grow in Italy, Spain and France and obviously....right down the road ONLY. 

So much attention for a fungus? http://www.garlandtruffles.com/index.html

Oh, and lest I forget. You take your DOG, not your PIG to hunt for them. Well...hell.

Obviously we need to clear this mystery up so I can move on with my life:

How are they collected?  Under the guise of night, many truffle hunters embark on their search with a prized female pig to sniff out the goods in secret (pictured above).  Female pigs relate the truffle odor to that of a male pig, and often have to be held back upon truffle discovery for fear of destroying it with overzealous digging.  Thus, hunters increasingly train dogs like Rocco (not pictured) to sniff out their fortune.  Visiting a truffle hunter is like visiting a culinary drug lord – lots of secrecy, lingo and hidden goods.  Whatever you do, don’t even think of asking to see or touch the pig that holds their treasure in the palm of her, well, hoof.  She’s kept in her pen all day long to focus on her one and only goal, and any surprise guests might throw her off for days.

Gag.