Posted on 11/27/2007 1:49:33 PM PST by NormsRevenge
ROME (Reuters) - A 1.5-kg white truffle found in the Italian countryside will be sold at a charity auction in Macau where it is expected to fetch 150,000 euros (108,000 pounds).
Truffle hunter Cristiano Savini displayed his precious find at a five-star hotel in Rome on Tuesday before it was flown to the Chinese enclave for Saturday's auction.
Savini's dog, Rocco, sniffed out the truffle, one of the biggest unearthed in the past 50 years, by an oak tree near Pisa last weekend, in an area of Tuscany where Cristiano and his father scout for truffles every year.
Ten years ago, they found a half-kilo white truffle by the same tree.
The truffle was 75 centimetres (2.5 feet) underground. As two men dug deeper, the dog went "wild", jumping from one side to the other as if to indicate they had to enlarge the hole.
"This is very unusual in truffle hunting - rather than digging down and narrowing towards the spot where the truffle was, we had to dig wider and wider, like in a reverse cone," Savini said.
It took Savini and his father more than an hour to get the truffle out.
Savini decided to donate his truffle to organisers of the Macau auction. "Even if the truffle is very much linked to trade and money, we took this one as a gift, a gift to us - me and my family," he said.
A truffle of the same size, found in Italy's truffle town of Alba, was bought for 125,000 euros by a Hong Kong bidder last year.
According to media reports, the 1.5-kg truffles were the biggest since a 2.5-kg truffle was found in 1954 and presented to former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower.
A 1.5kg (3.3lb) white truffle of Tuscany is displayed in downtown Rome November 27, 2007. Italian truffle hunter and trader Cristiano Savini spent more than an hour digging down 80cm (2.6ft) to find the largest truffle unearthed in half a century, at a countryside spot near Pisa. The truffle is expected to break auction records by fetching more than $206,000, according to the auction organizer. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
Pretty pricey toadstool. ;)
I’ve always wondered how we learned how to eat an artichoke. Must have been desperation.
Who was the starving dude that ate the first oyster?
Really. In fact, I’ve never been starving enough to EVER eat one. Heheheh.
How about the first person to eat a lobster?
“Hey, this looks like a giant, ugly, bad-tempered bug! Let’s cook it alive and eat it!”
LOL
I love oyster stew and smoked oysters. The trick is not to look at them. :o)
Indeed, lobsters and crabs. Not all cute and cuddly.
I’ve eaten lots of them. I was motivated!! :-)
The lobster was eaten raw. The Chinese and the japanese insisted on it.
Me too. Lobster and crab are my “brain food.” Love ‘em!
I had pulled and eaten a couple of the leaves(?) dipping the tips in a mayonnaise sauce as I was taught and scraping the meat part off between my teeth. I looked up and my wife was gnawing and chewing on the whole leaf(?) and having considerable difficulty doing it! It did not dawn on me that she had never eaten an artichoke before! I asked her what the heck she was doing. She answered, “it needs to be cooked a bit more”.
"NO ARTICHOKES FOR YOU"!!
I’ll stick to burnt cow and mash taters, thank you very much!
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