Truffle hunters in Greece sniff out new source of income

ATHENS - At an altitude of 1,500 meters, 51-year-old Marios Blanas and his dog Lacta, an Italian Griffon, start their day hunting "black diamonds", the valuable delicacy of truffles to be found on Menalon Mountain, in Peloponnese, southwest Greece.

Known to the French as the "black diamonds of gastronomy", while Greece does not have a truffle hunting tradition like France and Italy, the situation has changed radically over the last 10 years.

As a way to make money during the economic crisis that hit Greece in 2009, many turned to farming truffles, one of the most expensive foods in the world.

According to Blanas, in Peloponnese and in the mountainous Arcadia region, there are only two or three truffle hunters. Not many know that these treasures are buried in the fertile soil of Menalon mountain, and truffle hunting is not an easy job.

First, the truffle hunter has to find the right place, then he lets the dog do the rest by guiding it properly. Truffles grow underground, usually at the base of a tree.

"The dog can detect the smell that comes only from those truffles that are mature enough," Blanas said on a recent demonstration with Lacta.

Before becoming a truffle hunter, Blanas ran his own company in the construction sector in Athens, but he lost everything after the outbreak of the debt crisis.

Moving to Kalamata with his wife, he decided to start over. To support his family, Blanas began to explore truffle hunting five years ago.

As his great grandparents' origins were in a traditional village in a fir tree forest on Menalon Mountain, he rented a small house there and started his truffle venture.

He stays up to four days a week on the mountain, hunting with his dogs for truffles around six to eight hours every day. On the other days, he supplies the delicacy to his customers, mainly restaurants in Athens and Kalamata and Greek Islands like Mykonos and Santorini.

Truffle costs 800 euros ($928) per kilogram, he said.

A restaurant orders up to around 4 kilograms a month. Blanas can collect up to 100 kg of truffles in a year, but this year has been affected by long periods of drought.

"It is not easy, that's why there are not so many truffle hunters in the region and in Greece in general," he said.

Truffle hunting is not a low-cost activity.

When Blanas started, he had a dachshund named Clio. Later, he got Lacta for $9,280 from Italy, and now he has a total of six dogs that help him hunt.

During autumn and winter, he hikes up to an altitude of 1,000 to 1,500 meters to find the truffles and around 500 meters in the spring.

Despite the difficulties, he enjoys every second he has with his companions in nature.

In the future, he would like to combine truffle hunting with providing small seminars or demonstrations to visitors, he said.

Xinhua