Native Australian Truffles

[Rimbaud]

Truffles are the fungal delicacy par excellance. So where is the native aussie truffle industry?!??! Are there characteristics of native truffs that make them not worth the effort? The experts mention a combination of flavour and consistency that is problematic in the currently identified aussie species... but say that there are more truffle species to be found!

http://www.abc.net.au/science/scribblyg ... efault.htm

Has anyone here eaten an Aussie truffle?

p.s. on a related note, check this out:
http://www.trufflesaustralis.com.au/

cool!

[clare_b74]

That's interesting - was only thinking the other day about whether or not I could grow truffles under my established oak trees... My reading of that truffles australis site is that you buy innoculated trees, but surely you could innoculate an old tree? (and experiement with native species)

Ahh, bugger it - I'll just email 'em. Keep you posted!

[darcy]

I saw a Landline program a while back on Aus. truffle industry, i think it was mostly over in WA, they were getting some good sized ones from Hazlenut trees (not 100% on that). I can't even remember eating one, so if someone has a spare, i'd love it

[clare_b74]

Hmm, the Truffle Man says you can only innoculate a baby tree and grow your truffles from there... Bummer, with approximately 100,000 mature oaks that I didn't want in the first place, I don't really want any more! Maybe hazelnuts are the way to go... Though maybe it's a general nut thing and bunyas and aussie truffles are the go!

[eataust]

Aussie-grown french truffles are starting to take off in Australia - Tassie is going quite well, and there's some NSW/Victorian farms now getting there.

I've still not heard of Australian truffles, though! Who'll train up the pigs and dogs to sniff _them_ out??!

edit: hmmm, according to that page,

"He says there are no Australian truffles to his knowledge that have this magic three-pronged appeal, and so none would make it to the bush tucker market."

Maybe we should just concentrate on the extreeeeemely potentially lucrative French truffle market :)

[rev]

ther are no aussie native truffles
well not of the genus Tuber anyway
which is teh one the european ones are in

australia has a hell of a lot of hypogeous fungi thugh
maybe more than anywhere else even
and we probably had more back when the counry was full of potoroos and assorted marsupial fungivores

i personally would not eat a native truffle as tehre is virtually no way of telling what it is realted to - and yes they have now found amanita truffles
hypogeous fungi are degenerate mushrooms. evovled never to emerge but to be dug up by truffle eating animals and spread that way
hence the rich aroma of the euro truffle

however teh aussie ones dont share that aromaso far

if you want to have a new species named after you then go looking for aussie truffles. just go digging and sooner than later you will hit a new one. they erae wofully undercollected comapred to the msuhrooms , which are also undercollected