Truffle Hunters

April 27, 2003 9:55 AM

Truffle Hunters"The pig is not content to wag his tail and point when he has discovered a truffle," says Peter Mayle, author of 'A Year In Provence'. "He wants to eat it. In fact, he is desperate to eat it. And you cannot reason with a pig on the brink of gastronomic ecstasy. He is not easily distracted, nor is he of a size you can fend off with one hand while you rescue the truffle. There he is, as big as a small tractor, rigid with porcine determination and refusing to be budged." Which is why Hungarians are teaching dogs to do the work -- but should they be asking a canine to do a sow's job?
posted by feelinglistless (6 comments total)

They've used truffle dogs in France and Italy for a long time, for just this reason. There are even experiments with electronic truffle sniffers. Just watch out for dognapping!
posted by Vidiot at 10:27 AM on April 27, 2003

...but should they be asking a canine to do a sow's job?

The other day I asked myself that same question in reference to politics (before concluding it was insulting to the animals).
posted by Shane at 11:58 AM on April 27, 2003

"The pig is not..."
GREAT quote, by the way!
posted by Shane at 12:03 PM on April 27, 2003

yah, Mayle's a wonderful writer when he's working at it. (He can be kind of uneven, though.)
posted by Vidiot at 12:14 PM on April 27, 2003

Ahhh, the Budapest Sun. It's the English-language paper for Budapest, run by a band of people with little grasp of journalism or the English language. That said, we never had too much a problem with the actual reporting, but had to suffer the uselessness of the movie reviews (which always sound like they're written by a kinda mainstream friend who isn't really into movies, but had aspirations of being a great newspaper film critic, none-the-less) and their letters column, always good for a laugh.

(And for reference, and maybe even relevance, 60,000 forints is about $240, if the ~250->1 exchange rate from January is still accurate.)
posted by kaibutsu at 12:56 PM on April 27, 2003

(From Kaibutsu's link): "... women who vociferate during sex."

I didn't even know that was possible!

:)
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:38 PM on April 27, 2003