The Seattle Times is getting all enthusiastic about Oregon truffles, and it has to be said, so am I. I'm flying over to Eugene in a couple of weeks to give the keynote address at the Oregon Truffle Festival, and I'm really looking forward to getting my first taste of these truffles. Tyrone Beaston (rather breathlessly) explains the attraction:

The moment I heard chef and truffle-worshipper Kevin Blaylock yell, "Holy crap, I found a really big one!" as he scanned the fluffy, upturned soil in a patch of Douglas firs south of Olympia, I knew he'd hit pay dirt. He knelt and picked up a dingy white orb about the size of a gumball, brought it to his nose and took a whiff so deep and passionate I thought he was falling in love with it. From an aesthetic point of view, the ugly little truffle seemed hardly worth all the excitement. But truffles are surely the only fungus that can make a foodie drop to his knees in such pure joy. In this case, it was an Oregon white truffle, the lesser-known cousin of the famous and obscenely expensive Italian variety that many people encounter as aromatic shavings atop a serving of risotto or the mysterious musk in a gourmet omelet.

Charles Lefevre (OTF organiser, and no stranger to this blog) gives good quote:

I asked Charles Lefevre of Eugene, Ore., a Ph.D. in mycology and owner of New World Truffieres, which sells oak and hazelnut trees inoculated with truffle spores, to tell me how he's heard Italian white truffles described. "One description was goat piss, which I think is pretty close," he said. "Another was dead mouse trapped in a wall. The kinder description is garlicky. "The typical response when people smell Italian white truffles is, 'Get that thing away from me,' " Lefevre said. "It's a foul aroma, a nasty aroma — and some people just absolutely love it. And I'm one of them." Blaylock is one of those people, too. The 27-year-old swears he's so attuned to truffle scent, he can smell it in the forest air during peak season. When he handed me a couple of young white truffles to sniff during our Saturday morning foray, their funky, beguiling odor overwhelmed my senses for a second. The smell was both alluring and repulsive.

Goat's piss does not spring to mind when I consider the aroma of white truffles, but I can see where he's coming from with the dead mice. Charles claims that he was misquoted, pointing the finger at Dr Mike Amaranthus for the goat angle, but sticks by the dead mice. I shall test it out when I start on the muricide. Soon...

More OTF salivating here (but fewer choice quotes).