On the Trail of the World's Most Seductive Scent, with Dreamers, Schemers, and Some Extraordinary Dogs
by Rowan Jacobsen
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Readers' rating:
Published Oct 2021
304 pages
Genre: Travel & Adventure
Publication Information
A captivating exploration into the secretive and sensuous world of truffles, the elusive food that has captured hearts, imaginations, and palates worldwide.
The scent of one freshly unearthed white truffle in Barolo was all it took to lead Rowan Jacobsen down a rabbit hole into a world of secretive hunts, misty woods, black-market deals, obsessive chefs, quixotic scientists, muddy dogs, maddening smells, and some of the most memorable meals ever created.
Truffles attract dreamers, schemers, and sensualists. People spend years training dogs to find them underground. They plant forests of oaks and wait a decade for truffles to appear. They pay $3,000 a pound to possess them. They turn into quivering puddles in their presence. Why?
Truffle Hound is the fascinating account of Rowan's quest to find out, a journey that would lead him from Italy to Istria, Hungary, Spain, England, and North America. Both an entertaining odyssey and a manifesto, Truffle Hound demystifies truffles-and then remystifies them, freeing them from their gilded cage and returning them to their roots as a sacred offering from the forest. It helps people understand why they respond so strongly to that crazy smell, shows them there's more to truffles than they ever imagined, and gives them all the tools they need to take their own truffle love to the next level. Deeply informed, unabashedly passionate, rakishly readable, Truffle Hound will spark America's next great culinary passion.
"James Beard Award–winning author Jacobsen captivates with this dual narrative, both an eloquent and sensuous treatise on truffles and the enthralling story of his obsessive quest to learn everything there is to know about them...The real delicacy here, though, is the arresting prose used to convey his reverence and awe." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The author depicts a culture of truffle finding, trading, and eating that is as complex as the aromatic stew of ingredients that goes into one, and he commits to paper lovely images that combine both intrigue and a certain level of surrealism...Fans of pungent flavors—and pungent prose—will enjoy this mouthwatering grand tour of a culinary treasure." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A deep dive into all things truffle that's somewhat repetitive in places, but well written and full of interesting characters and fascinating facts." - Library Journal
"Delightful, informative, and so much fun to read, this book will inspire you to grab your four-legged friend and scramble into the forest, noses twitching, in search of your own dirt-covered delicacies." - Fern Watt, author of Adventure Dogs and Gizelle's Bucket List: My Life with a Very Large Dog
"A terrific addition to the oeuvre. What is special about Truffle Hound is its investigation of many truffles from many places. For all those who think of truffles in binary terms, as in T. melanosporum and T. magnatum, Truffle Hound will be a revelation." - Eugenia Bone, author of Mycophilia
This information about Truffle Hound was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rowan Jacobsen is the author of the James Beard Award-winning A Geography of Oysters as well as American Terroir, Apples of Uncommon Character, and other books. His books have been named to numerous top ten lists, and he has been featured on All Things Considered, The Splendid Table, Morning Edition, and CBS This Morning, and in the pages of Bon Appétit, Saveur, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. He lives in Vermont.
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