28 



of brown or green, it is not in a fit state for the table, and will 

 very shortly afterwards be resolved into a mass of olive green 

 powder, being the accuraiilation of ripe spores. If slices of about 

 one inch in thickness are taken at the proper period, and fried 

 in bread crumbs, the fungus is really good eating. My friend 

 Dr. Badham, who wrote upon esculent fungi, and was an enthu- 

 siast as to their good qualities, has compared the flavour of these 

 fried slices of L. giganteum to a light omelette. Without -going 

 so far as that in approbation, I can certify that they are exceed- 

 ingly palatable. 



The Truffle is a delicacy which has been known from antiquity, 

 but the ancients were ignorant of its fungoid nature. Pliny and 

 Dioscorides considered it to be a kind of earthy concretion, and 

 the former tells a story of a Roman Praetor who broke his tooth 

 in eating a Truffle in which a Eoman coin had got embedded. 

 Galen at a little later period thought that Truffles were roots, 

 and this notion has prevailed in some ill informed quarters in 

 quite recent times. The nature of Truffles is now as well under- 

 stood as that of any other fungus, and modern microscopic 

 investigation shews that their fructification is just the same 

 as that of the Morel and other allied plants, differing, however, 

 in being produced internally instead of on the outer surface. 

 The Truffle — the "diamond of cookerj%" as it has been hyper- 

 bolically called by ^I. Brillat-Savarin — ranks as high as, perhaps 

 higher, than the mushroom. Its good qualities come out in the 

 turkey pies which we meet with at City dinners, in the pates de 

 foie gras of Strasburg, and in other condiments. Mr. Berkeley 

 says that a truffle, simply boiled like a potato, is very good 

 eating, a statement which I can neither vouch for nor contradict. 

 In this country truffles are found principally in the chalk downs 

 in Wiltshire, where they are traced by the aid of truffle-dogs, a 

 peculiar sort of animal, more like a poodle than any other kind 

 of dog. Although not handsome, the intelligence of these dogs 

 makes them very valuable. A well-trained truffle-dog is not to 

 be got for less than £5. He is as fond of truffles as the gour- 

 mands for whom he collects them, and the truffle-hunter has to 

 look sharp to see that his dog does not swallow the delicacies as 

 he finds them. 



It is not to iiiankind alone that truffles form accoplablc food. 



