Robert and Paul Hunt Truffles in France

Robert Chang with truffle dog Fifi. Truffles, truffles, truffles! There’s nothing like a good truffle hunt in Europe. This past February, on the heels of the sixth annual Napa Truffle Festival, my colleague Dr. Paul Thomas and I ventured to Cahors, the heart of the French truffle producing region, just north of Toulouse. Our purpose:

Suitable Climate Areas in North America for Périgord Truffles

One of the first  questions that a potential grower asks is if their land is located in a suitable climatic zone for growing truffles. In response, we’ve created the world’s first interactive truffle climate map for North America, which we’ve posted on the American Truffle Company website. The map does not answer the general question

Climate Change and the Impact on Truffle Supply

Changes to climatic variables across the world are evidenced from a large range of sources, including climate station logging by humans. Future predictions for climate change are variable and complex; however, there is broad agreement for the direction of impacts for many areas. We at American Truffle Company are often asked the question ‘how will

Ca’ Momi of Napa Features Gnocchi With Black Truffles

Since the first year that the Napa Truffle Festival held its Marketplace at Oxbow Public Market (2012), chef/co-owner Dario De Conti of Ca’ Momi Enoteca has presented lively cooking demos of their popular Pizza al Tartufo Nero. This year, their new Napa downtown restaurant Ca’ Momi Osteria also offered truffle menus throughout the winter truffle

Angele in Downtown Napa Features Truffle Menu – Warm Ricotta Custard with Shaved Truffles

This year’s Napa Truffle Festival invited local restaurants to participate in the winter truffle season with a truffle dish or menu. We’ll be sharing some of their recipes and stories, beginning with the lovely, bistro-style Angèle Restaurant & Bar’s Warm Ricotta Custard with wild mushrooms and shaved black truffles by Chef Rogelio Garcia. Custard suggests

Tagliatelle Pasta with Fresh Black Truffles by Chef Ken Frank

Chef Ken Frank is the official host chef of the annual Napa Truffle Festival. Each year, he helps select the master guest chefs and provides his beautiful La Toque restaurant as the venue for the festival’s signature Truffles & Wine Dinner. Widely considered the top truffle chef of North America, he holds the distinct honor

Black Truffles in Macedonia

This has been a very exciting truffle season for us with the harvesting of our first cultivated truffle in the UK and now a second first harvest at one of our orchards in Macedonia, planted seven years ago. These truffle orchards were inoculated by us with the black truffle fungus (Tuber melanosporum) and managed and

Truffle Cappuccino Soup by Chef Rick Tramonto

Joining our host Chef Ken Frank of La Toque for the 2016 Napa Truffle Festival are three master chefs, including San Francisco’s David Barzelay of Lazy Bear, Italy’s Stefano Ciotti of Nestrano and New Orleans’ Rick Tramonto of Restaurant R’evolution. As a special preview, Chef Rick shared his delicious, soul warming recipe for truffle cappuccino

Spore Mats – An Intriguing Phenomena

Spore mats are an intriguing phenomena. For certain fungi, they may be quite visible as dense mats of fungi in the ground that produce spores. Spores are, of course, the seeds of a fungus and those that are found on spore mats are often mitospores, whereas those that form from a fruiting body, such as

Robert Chang & Dr. Paul Thomas Score Truffles Down Under

During our recent trek Down Under, Dr. Paul Thomas and I spent time in Manjimup Western Australia researching and foraging for black European truffles—the very same black diamonds that ATC cultivates with our truffle partners here in North America. Our time there was educational and exhilarating. See Dr. Thomas’ July blog for insights about the

Examining Truffle Rot in Australia

Last month, Robert Chang and I visited Western Australia to explore several facets of their native truffle industry. While there, I was particularly keen to look at the issues many orchards are having with truffle rot. Despite the fact that some plantations in Western Australia produce very good yields, there has been a localized problem

A Role for Mating Types in Truffles

Despite the traditional focus by truffle cultivation researchers and practitioners on site selection and in-field methodologies, it is a new genetic understanding that represents a new frontier. In 2010 the genome of Tuber melanosporum (black European truffles), the world’s most commercially valuable cultivatable truffle species and the focus of American Truffle Company’s ongoing research and