Suggested Reading

[Alana McGee]

There is SO much information that is not in the popular mindset or public sphere about truffles, that as instructors, often we don?t know what may interest some folks as everyone has a different purpose in training for truffle hunting. Much of the advanced information is only found in scientific papers and in the minds of those of those who are active in the industry and I always imagine it can get quite dull when I drone on and on about various highly scientific aspects of truffles and truffle hunting…

Throughout this course we will talk about truffles and discuss just about everything in individual threads, but if you have specific questions about Truffles, please feel free to start a thread here and we can get to your questions!

Here a a few books we recommend for sure:

The Field Guide to North American Truffles by Frank Evans, Matt Trappe, and Jim Trappe.
Jim is one of THE world authorities on truffles, and if you live in North America, this is a MUST HAVE. It is by no means complete, but is a very good begininger guide to basic info and once you start finding species in the woods will help you ID them. AGAIN, ALWAYS consult a professional before consuming anything you think is a truffle. There are some button stages of mushrooms which can be quite toxic that folks often mistake for truffles. We get sent pictures of them frequently, so you need to be careful.

You can always send us a photo of the exterior and interior of the truffle and we may be able to help you.

Another resource for those in North America is the North American Truffling Society (NATS). For unknown species, and if you are just curious about what you found and we can?t ID off of a picture, the folks at NATS (which includes Matt & Jim Trappe, among others) can take a look at the spores attempt to ID it for you.

We also are collecting samples from students for papers for later publication (all students with submitted samples to be credited) on distribution of species throughout the US and would be happy to include any samples you might find in the herbarium and DNA collection/ analysis. One of the largest sources for new information on distribution and on new truffle species is often from folks (like our students) who recreationally hunt truffles with their dogs in native woodland. There are new species discovered ever year and it is (if you love this stuff like me!) very exciting times!

For those of you in Europe and Oceania, also please feel free (and do!) send us photos of anything you find. We can always pass the photos off to Dr. Jim Trappe who also has extensive knowledge of Australian species and Dr. Paul Thomas in the UK, or Dr. Morara in Italy for European species if we cannot ID it ourselves.

Taming the Truffle: The History, Lore, and Science of the Ultimate Mushroom by Ian Hall, Gordon Brown, and Alessandra Zambonelli is also VERY good. It is a very good, basic, technical/scientific guide to European species cultivation & habitat and if you plan on starting your own truffle orchard, are hunting in Europe, it is a good one to own if you are interested in the science of how. For those of you in various places in Europe it will give you some clues as to soil conditions of what to look for. Please do not take it as an absolute however, as it does not cover many regions of Europe where truffles are found prolifically outside of the parameters they have set. The science is extremely solid however, and it is a good read. It is technical though and will bore many silly.

Those two are really staples for information on truffles. There is really relatively limited access to the public on information about habitat etc outside of scientific papers. There are some decent blogs, social media folks to follow however if you are interested if you participate in those realms.

Truffles Earth?s Black Diamonds by Annemie Dedulle is also a pretty coffee table book on truffles.

For Social Media we suggest following Gareth Renowden from Limestone Hills in NZ, Dr. Paul Thomas located in the UK ( Grenow & summertruffle respectively on twitter), and Marcos Morcillo and his blog (he is a Spanish Truffle scientist)

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