JV/STA
June 26, 2023, 4:55 p.m
Updated: 26/06/2023, 17.12
It is one of the biggest and heaviest truffles ever.
Italian truffle hunter Romolo Lazzari found a black truffle weighing 1.79 kilograms this weekend near the source of the Tiber River in the central Italian region of Umbria. He says he’s never seen anything like it in the 50 years he’s been searching for truffles. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. But the credit does not belong to me, but to my six-year-old hunting dog Pepe.” he added.
It is one of the largest truffles ever found. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest truffle so far was also found in central Italy in 2014, and it weighed 1,890 grams. It was later sold at an auction in New York for just over US$60,000.
Lazzari found the giant black truffle in a forest near the town of Citta di Castello, which is one of the main centers for Italy’s truffle pickers – an activity that was included in UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2021. In Italy, there is a network of more than 70,000 truffle pickers, called “tartufai”, who are assisted in their search by specially trained hunting dogs.
Black truffles are relatively common in central and southern Italy. According to experts, the price per kilogram this year is around 500 euros. Rarer and more expensive than black truffles are white truffles, which often reach sky-high prices. This year, they are around 3,500 euros per kilogram, and larger white truffles are often sold at auctions for several tens of thousands of euros.
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