BURIED TREASURE
Truffle production in Scotland may still be in its infancy, but Edinburgh is ahead of the game and nuggets of precious black gold are already being found in the capital, says Morag Bootland
The story of Scotland's secret truffles and great truffle recipes to try at home
It looks for all the world like any other stone, but the ultra-sensitive and highly trained nose of Max, the hyperactive springer spaniel, knows different. Because this small, gnarly, mud-covered lump is one of the world’s most expensive and sought after ingredients. And the truffle I’m holding in my hand was grown right here in Scotland, at a top secret location just outside Edinburgh.
Dr Paul Thomas is the scientist behind this truffle plantation and 30 others in the UK. In fact he has trees planted in 23 countries around the world. ‘We’ve got trees as far afield as Nepal,’ he tells me. Paul provides the trees, which he creates in his facility and which have the truffle fungus growing symbiotically in their root systems. The fungus helps the tree to grow by providing nourishment and the tree gives sugar to the fungus in return. The trees – oak, hazel, beech and birch – are then planted and should produce truffles within six years.
Paul visits each of his sites regularly to collect data from monitoring stations and keep an eye on his trees. ‘Truffles like alkaline soil, which there’s not much of in Scotland, so we dig in limestone,’ says Paul. He monitors soil moisture, temperature and water uptake in order to pool data from the Edinburgh site with those of his other sites around the world and see what he can learn.
Joyce and her dog Max were trained to hunt for truffles and the search now forms part of their daily walk. ‘It’s a bit addictive,’ Joyce says. ‘Once you’ve found a few you want to keep coming back for more. On one occasion Max found 19 truffles on one tree, I would have stopped sooner and said there were none left, but he knew they were there and he wouldn’t give up.’
‘The first truffles found in Edinburgh went to Inver Restaurant in Argyll and Tom Kitchin in the capital’