Truffle Hound

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What to expect

A captivating exploration into the secretive and sensuous world of truffles, the elusive food that has captured hearts, imaginations, and palates worldwide.

The scent of one freshly unearthed white truffle in Barolo was all it took to lead Rowan Jacobsen down a rabbit hole into a world of secretive hunts, misty woods, black-market deals, obsessive chefs, quixotic scientists, muddy dogs, maddening smells, and some of the most memorable meals ever created.

Truffles attract dreamers, schemers, and sensualists. People spend years training dogs to find them underground. They plant forests of oaks and wait a decade for truffles to appear. They pay £2,170 a pound to possess them. They turn into quivering puddles in their presence. Why?

Truffle Hound is the fascinating account of Rowan's quest to find out, a journey that would lead him from Italy to Istria, Hungary, Spain, England, and North America. Both an entertaining odyssey and a manifesto, Truffle Hound demystifies truffles—and then remystifies them, freeing them from their gilded cage and returning them to their roots as a sacred offering from the forest. It helps people understand why they respond so strongly to that crazy smell, shows them there’s more to truffles than they ever imagined, and gives them all the tools they need to take their own truffle love to the next level. Deeply informed, unabashedly passionate, rakishly readable, Truffle Hound will spark Britain’s next great culinary passion.

Critics Review

  • [H]ere are the Winesap, the Pound Sweet, the Maiden’s Blush and Black Twig, rendered in a vivid prose rarely seen outside of the wine list . . . For anyone who’s willing to get swept up in the grand romance of food, this handsome volume will make for seductive reading.

    Morning Edition, NPR, on APPLES OF UNCOMMON CHARACTER

  • One of the most remarkable single-subject books to come along in a while . . . Jacobsen covers oysters in exhaustive detail, but with writing so engaging and sprightly that reading about the briny darlings is almost as compulsive as eating them . . . There may be no more pleasurable food than a raw oyster, there almost certainly is no better guide.

    Los Angeles Times on A GEOGRAPHY OF OYSTERS

  • Written in an accessible style by a hard-core ostreaphile, A Geography of Oysters is a fun read, inviting you to join Jacobsen on his quest for an oyster-rich life. Yes, please!

    Washington Post on A GEOGRAPHY OF OYSTERS

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