l'avventura grande: In Search of the World's Most Expensive Food

The sun had not yet risen when the battered SUV pulled up near our apartment.

Roger jumped in and was trundled off down rutted strade bianche (gravel roads) deep into the Tuscan backcountry.

This day's adventure was a search for il tartufo (the truffle)...the world's most expensive food.

The car parked just as the sun cleared the horizon.

Roger's guide this day was Giancarlo Scroccaro, father of a friend who owns the local butcher shop.

In France, they use pigs to hunt truffles...but not in Italy.

Here, it's dogs.

This day, Zara, Jaka, and Koka would be the stars of the show.

The dogs hopped out the back of the SUV, bounded across a vineyard that looked naked with its leaves fallen to the ground, and headed into the woods.

Truffle hunters are famous for being very secretive about the best places to find their fungi.

No secrets this day. The woods they tramped was an officially-designated truffle reserve.

Giancarlo lead the dogs down a rugged wooded path along side a stream.

He explained truffles grow best where the ground stays damp but there's enough sun to warm the earth a bit.

Truffles are an underground fungus that thrive near tree roots. If they are harvested too early, they are small, not very flavorful, and have not yet spread their spores to cultivate a new generation of offspring.

The French have had limited success cultivating truffles. In Italy, almost all truffles are harvested in the wild.

The dogs spread out across the rugged terrain in search of the distinct aroma of truffles.

Truffle hunters use dogs because of their acute sense of smell. They can find their prey even when it's buried six inches underground.

The dogs were easily distracted by all the other scents in the forest. Several times they went chasing off after what Giancarlo said was the smell of deer. But when he made a soft clicking noise, the dogs returned to the task at hand.

After about a half hour of bush-whacking along a stream bed, the dogs went into a frenzy.

Giancarlo had to pull them out of the holes they were digging. He told Roger there were no truffles. He pointed to about a dozen burrows in the dirt and said the cinghiale (wild boars) had been in the area the night before and had cleaned out all the truffles.

The smell remained, and that's what had gotten the dogs so excited.

The hunting party trudged up and down several different stream beds without success.

The humans adjourned at 9:00am for a slice of pizza and glass of wine.

The dogs stayed in the SUV.

Then they all went back at it.