TRUFFLE HUNTERS
The scent of a truffle. It’s all in the nose, I discovered,
after spending the day with truffle hunters, Max and
Jean-Claude. A well-trained dog and noticing the smallest
clues in the landscape, vegetation and insect behavior
all help a hunter locate a truffle’s whereabouts. But once
the digging starts, it’s the scent that leads a trufficulteur
to his trophy. And boy, does a truffle smell strong.
Text and Images > Rebecca Marshall
Provence is not as well known
as the Périgord region for its
truffles, but actually 80% of
French production of the black
truffle (Tuber melanosporum)
comes from southeast France.
knowledge of where they are found is
kept closely guarded. So there is some
reluctance to have a photojournalist
discover and document truffle
spots. However, after over a year of
becoming a regular fixture at country
truffle fairs and persisting in spite of
a number of false starts, I was finally
able to set off “à la truffe.”
Arranging Access
This shoot did not happen
easily. The conditions required
for the growth of truffles
remain mysterious in part, and
given the increasingly high
monetary value of truffles, the
Overprotective Truffle Dogs
We spent the morning in Jean-Claude’s plantations, where he
cultivates his land for truffling.
Nonetheless, the tubers remain
elusive, and it was definitely a hunt,
not a harvest. Climbing over high
fences (that protect plantations against
unwelcome human and wild boar
