Where's the chocolate?

Hey thats not chocolate!

This weekend we went to Alba, a city in Piemonte, about a three hour drive from Nice. We went to a white tartufo festival which is the biggest one in the world. When I heard we were going to this festival I was excited thinking we were going to a chocolate festival.  Turns out a white truffle isn't actually chocolate. 

Pretty smelly stuff!!

They are very rare mushrooms that have a very strong earthy smell and grow underground mostly in Piemonte.   Dogs that have been trained and are addicted to the smell of the tartufo are used to sniff out where the mushrooms are growing underground.  We spent the morning at the festival buying and sampling truffle spread, olive oil, cheese, pasta and we bought a tartufo to take home.  


It suprised me to hear that you don't cook  the mushroom, you simply grate it onto your plain pasta and you eat it like that.  It is so cool that a mushroom can be used in all different ways and be put into all different foods. There were also lots of hazelnut products at the festival because the area is rich with hazelnut trees.   The nuts are used to make nutella, hazelnut chocolate cake and hazelnut cake, chocolate and honey covered hazelnuts and many more products.   

On the drive back to Nice we stopped off at a chestnut festival where the local villagers played music and sang songs and roasted chestnuts.  As well, we met a man selling amazingly delicious cheese, who almost gave us a meal of samples of cheese.

This cheese is yummy!

We also met an American that has been living in Piemonte for two years named Giacomo (well his name is James but the locals renamed him).   Giacomo was one of the men roasting the chestnuts over the fire at the festival.   

In a few weeks Giacomo is harvesting olives and will be making olive oil.  Dad is going to join Giacomo and other men with the harvest and learn how olive oil is made. Hopefully he comes home with a bottle of oil.

It was a great weekend and even though it wasn't a chocolate truffle festival it was interesting to learn about the mushrooms and get a chance to try them.

Me and my biker buddies!!

Simona