THOSE TWO RAILWAY MEN DISCOVERED GOLD

PIONEERS OF TRUFFLE-HUNTING, THAT TURNED INTO AN INCREDIBLE RESOURCE OF .

LIVIO MISSIO PHOTO SERGIO GOBBO

hat were those two crazy Italians with setters doing in their fields? The peasants living in the River Valley between and Livade were W looking at them with curiosity, until they realized they were looking for the smelly potatoes!

That’s what the locals called these strange tubers that from time to time popped out from the blows of a hoe: smelly potatoes, food for the poor. But the two crazy Italian railroad workers knew very well that they had discovered Istrian gold: the tuber magnatum pico or white truffle. This was in the early 1930s in Livade, where a narrow gauge railway station connected Poreč to Trieste, important for all of Istria. Between one train and another, during the long autumn afternoons, the two Tuscans realized that the forests around hid truffles. They had two dogs sent from Forlimpopoli and started their experiment. “I remember those two, Fava and Berganzoni. I was a kid and watched them from the school window,” says 76 year-old Pietro Facchin. “They would buy a one kilo loaf of bread, then head into the forest until noon, coming back with two military sacks full of truffles. And the truffles were so big!” The Istrian white truffle is like that from Alba, but even larger and more aromatic. The Guinness Book confirms that the world record is held by a specimen weighing 1.310 grams found near on November 2, 1999, certified in a document showcased in the restaurant owned by the truffle’s finder, Mr. Giancarlo Zigante. Of weak constitution and sporting two great handlebar moustaches, Pietro Facchin is the king of the Livade’s truffle hunters. He has found so many truffles in his lifetime that he can afford the luxury of preparing them with other vegetables. “That way they’re not overly strong,” he says. What a lucky fellow! And lucky are his dogs, trained with truffle morsels. The best dogs are crossbreeds of the German Pointer and the Labrador, and even better if their puppies are crossbred with the Istrian bloodhound. The small, lively puppies are likeable though not beautiful, and of great worth. A good, well-trained dog can be worth 10.000 euros, more than a cousin with a perfect pedigree. At present, official data says that there are about 1.500 licensed truffle hunters, but according to other sources there are at least that many unauthorized. The area is small but rich. It extends along the Mirna River Valley for about fifteen kilometers and is a few kilometers wide, from Oprtalj to Motovun and Vižinada to Grožnjan. Other smaller truffle areas are also found around Buzet, and Buje. In good years the area around the Mirna River yields as much as twenty tons of magnatum pico and some ten tons of black truffle species. The forest of St. Mark is the best. It is an ancient public forest whose boundaries were once marked by stones displaying the lion of St. Mark, where the oaks with the best truffles were found. Unfortunately nowadays, especially at the bottom of the valley, the oak and elm tree forests have been supplanted by poplars that yield truffles of lesser quality. But up in the hills the wood is still intact. According to Madi Fast, a writer from Trieste who has written a splendid booklet dedicated to the precious tuber, “The white Istrian truffle is the same species as the one from Alba. The second one has a more rounded, beautiful shape, longer preservation period and is slightly tougher. The Istrian truffle, although having the same biological characteristics, is hump-shaped, less resistant but tenderer, making it better for gastronomy. The taste and the aroma are the same.” Every year an underground river of truffles flows from Istria to Alba in Piedmont, where the truffles are sold as Piedmont’s. The exploitation of the Istrian truffle area is a unique story. Before World War II, the mayor of Oprtalj, Emilio Facchini, received a concession of the St. Mark forest and began exporting the entire harvest. The largest truffles were sent as gifts to Mussolini since the concession had to be renewed by Rome each year. The other truffles went to the rest of Italy. With Tito’s Socialist Republic even the truffle was nationalized. There was just one company authorized to harvest them. Those were the golden years of the smugglers from Trieste, when one could often read in the local daily newspaper, The Piccolo, about boots full of truffles confiscated by customs authorities and incinerated. Nowadays one needs only to be a Croatian citizen and to purchase a license at a cost of 800 kuna, or about 120 euros, to hunt truffles. But selling them isn’t easy. Truffles are delicate and perishable. “The best ones are from Mr. Giancarlo Zigante, no doubt about that,” assures Mr. Massimo Cossio, expert on Istria and owner of the legendary restaurant Ai Veterani in Mestre near Venice. With his shops in Livade, Buje, Buzet, Pazin, and abroad, Mr. Zigante has become the Rockefeller of truffles. Where once he hunted and sold them, one fine day he found the famed 1.300 kilogram specimen. As it was sliced at a special dinner in his friend Marino Markežić ’s restaurant in Kremenje on the road from Kaštel to Momjan, Zigante decided to start his own business. No sooner said than done, the Restaurant Enoteca Zigante near his shop in Livade has earned 91 of 100 points in the regional gourmet guide – the same as that of his rival-friend Marino in Kremenje. Those are the top two Istrian restaurants for meat-based specialties that, together with just eight others, are entitled to display the ‘Genuine Truffle’ certificate awarded by the regional tourism board of Istria. The local cuisine has grown as well. Marino Markežić , with his chefs, has prepared several new dishes, to be revealed soon. For now, just a single anticipation that alone is worth the journey: a pie filled with hot fondant bitter chocolate, gently laid on a mirror-like vanilla sauce, covered with white truffle snowfall. “It is important to have fresh truffles, avoiding the frozen product,” says Massimo Cossio. And in fact this is the last frontier. He who finds the way to perfectly preserve truffles will have discovered the stone of wisdom. Frozen, preserved in sterilized brine, grated, kneaded with butter and frozen, sliced in honey to pair with local sheep’s milk cheese - they’ve tried it all, but the results remain imperfect. And so it is recommended that one wait until autumn and ask that the truffles be sliced, not grated for God’s sake, directly at the table. A Truffle Fair takes place every Sunday in October and the first Sunday in November in Livade, an occasion not to be missed. And in winter, black truffles come with the cold - less aromatic but more affordable. But, don’t forget the high prices. Zigante isn’t compromising himself with them, but he’s not to blame. “The prices are set by the market in Alba,” he says. A limited but high quality harvest is expected in Istria. We’ll see.