In Italy, No Truffling Matter

"Easter," I guess. "It's like an Easter egg hunt!"

"Si, si," he replies, as Gaia scampers off and starts digging.

This time Roberto, who's been trying to follow our conversation, is late on the grab, and Gaia gobbles what must have been a chick pea-size truffle, despite his efforts to pry it from her jaws. Episodes such as this explain why Italians use dogs to search for truffles, rather than pigs, Roberto says. It's not uncommon for French truffle hunters to be missing a finger or two from tussles with their truffle-crazed porkers.

As we stride across the hillside toward a lone oak tree, we ask what type of dog Gaia is. "He says he only uses bastardi ." Gianni translates. "They make the best truffle dogs. Bastardi -- you know?"

"Mutts," I tell him. What else could it mean?

"Only females," Roberto adds. "The males are too distracted by other smells." I nod and smile a knowing female smile.

The dogs are trained from an early age with tiny pieces of truffle, and by the time they're full-fledged truffle hunters, Roberto claims, they're worth about 3000 euros, or more than $3,500. So Gaia, who by now is wet, matted and muddy, is more valuable than many a pampered purebred. She proves her worth by bagging a white truffle, the most valuable of them all. Roberto gingerly digs it out, wraps it and places it in a pocket on the inside of his jacket. "I keep the white ones close to me," he says, smiling.

Rain earlier in the day rinsed competing smells out of the air, so the truffles are easier to find, Roberto tells us. Hunting is good at night, too, when there are fewer odors, "but there are wild boars and they can kill the dogs," he adds. Dusk is closing in, and Gaia disappears with Roberto into a clutch of dense brush. Like a gullible camper who's just been told a ghost story, I listen for the grunts of a cinghiale that could materialize from the underbrush at any moment and impale me on its vicious tusks.

Roberto and Gaia emerge, trailed by neither a boar nor a man with a bloody hook. The light is so dim that we decide to call it a day, and trudge through the mud to a modest home nearby, where Gianni wants to say hello to some friends. A woman comes to the door holding a partly assembled jacket lapel. "She does hand-finish work for some of the top Italian couture," Gianni says as he introduces us. Within just three hours, I've hunted legendary little lumps of astronomical value, escaped wild boars and come upon a magical cottage where Armani suits appear.

We bid goodbye to Roberto and tell him if he visits the United States, we will take him on a hunt for parking spaces, which are nearly as rare as truffles. He refuses a gratuity, which we'd conspired with Gianni to present, just as he'd refused an offer of payment when the expedition was organized. "It is my pleasure," he maintains.

At this point, I could use a spot more grappa, but we are late for dinner, where Silvana is going to show us what she can do with the precious fungus. Silvana had her own restaurant for 25 years, we'd learned, and her meals so far have been feasts, even sans truffles. She brings out two white ones for us to choose from, telling us they are sold by the gram. They sit royally on a small wooden tray beneath a glass dome. Paul dubs it a "truffle trap." Appropriate, because when Silvana lifts the lid, a cloud of captured truffle musk escapes and wafts out to seduce us. We choose our truffle and she carefully brushes it off, telling us in a combination of English, French and Italian that truffles should never be cleaned until just before they're eaten.

Silvana overwhelms us with a seven-course extravaganza, including three dishes topped with truffles, which she shaves at the table, letting the steam transport the potent truffle aroma up to our noses. The food is simple, so the truffles can star: small crepes, oozing with rich local cheese; homemade, hand-cut tagliatelli in a light sauce of butter and milk; and an egg, sunny-side up. This is the perfect finish to a successful treasure hunt. Except Paul isn't finished.

"Santa Silvana," he asks (having granted her sainthood by this point), "could I have scrambled eggs con tartufi for breakfast?"

Silvana looks puzzled. "For breakfast?"

"Yes," Paul replies, giving her the same deprived, heart-melting look Gaia flashed when she was pulled away from a truffle.

"Why not?" Silvana says, laughing.

Gayle Keck last wrote for Travel about Egypt.