Truffles, those tasty little fungi, are what makes Oprah drool.

“I’m a truffle freak,” she said of her fungus obsession.

“I walk around with truffle salt. That’s on my rider for the hotels — truffle salt, truffle oil. I want to go to Alba [in Italy] and do the truffle hunt with the pigs.”

Hmmm. Hunting with pigs. Sounds fun.

So, once Oprah digs up the truffles with her nose, what will she do with them? Make pasta most likely.

“I’m really good with, unfortunately, pastas,” Oprah said of cooking with Truffles. “I make a mean pasta with shaved truffles and tortellini stuffed with cheese and truffles.”

Yum!

Upon wondering just what a truffle is and doing a little research, it seems that a truffle is a mushroom-type fungus that forms a symbiotic relationships with the roots of several tree species including beech, poplar, oak, birch, hornbeam, hazel, and pine.

Truffles grow and can be harvested year-round, depending on the species, and can be found buried between the leaf litter and the soil. So when the pigs go rooting around with their noses, that’s the layer of yuck that they are trying to reach.

The city of Alba, where Oprah wants to root up truffles with pigs, is most famous for the white truffle. Italian white truffles are intensely sought after and are the most valuable truffles on the market.

The white truffle market in Alba is very busy in the months of October and November when the Fiera del Tartufo (truffle fair) takes place. I wonder if that is when Oprah wants to go?

The most expensive truffles ever sold went for $330,000, one huge truffle in 2007 and a pair of truffles in 2010. The same guy bought the truffles both times! Imagine having so much money that you could blow that much on a fungus.

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