Chapter 1052 1037. Black Gold (3/5)

Chapter 1052 1037. Black Gold (35)

It was Lancaster who exclaimed. After Wang Bo ran over, he saw him concentrating on cleaning fallen leaves under an oak tree, with a serious expression on his face.

A few bodyguards were watching with great interest, and someone laughed and said, "I didn't expect to find treasures during exercise. It's good luck. It seems that the closer the sky is, the closer God is to us."

Lancaster rolled up his sleeves and swept away the leaves, using his rubber dagger to dig something out of the dirt.

These things are a bit like walnuts, with uneven appearance and complex lines, ranging from light brown to brown-black in color, mainly spherical, and also oval, small ones are similar to beans, and large ones are as big as walnuts.

At a glance, Wang Bo thought he had dug out a walnut from under the tree. Lancaster dug out a small ball slightly larger than a walnut, put it on his nose and sniffed it, and said with a smile: "Xue Te, unique The smell of the forest, I feel like I own the whole forest."

With that said, he handed the ball to Wang Bo.

Wang Bo looked at the ball and asked hesitantly, "Is this a truffle?"

Truffle is a general term for a kind of fungus, classified as Ascomycota truffle family Truffle genus, there are about 10 different species, usually annual fungi.

People who have lived in foreign countries for a long time know this kind of fungus. Most of them grow on the roots of broad-leaved trees. They usually grow under pine trees, oak trees, and oak trees. They are very rare.

China is also one of the truffle-producing countries, but because of the food habits and the rarity of this thing, there are not many descriptions of truffles in Chinese food culture.

In foreign countries, especially in Europe, people are full of interest in truffles because of their special smell and rich in protein, amino acids and other nutrients. In the selection of western food, caviar, foie gras and truffles are the three rare treasures in the world.

Compared with caviar and foie gras, truffles are more precious, because the requirements for the growing environment are extremely harsh, and they cannot be cultivated artificially. Precious ingredients.

Hearing his question, Lancaster showed an excited smile on his face: "Yes, this is a truffle, a type of black truffle. I just discovered it by coincidence. I'm so lucky!"

It is indeed a lucky thing to find truffles. They are generally scattered within one and a half meters of the bottom of the tree, and the most valuable truffles are 30 to 40 centimeters below the ground.

Because truffles are scarce, even in a forest where they are abundant, truffles are rarely found under a few trees, so they are hidden deep in the ground, making it even more difficult to find them.

The black truffles Lancaster found are also underground, but there are many fallen leaves and loose soil here. He wanted to dig a pit for a trench before, but he dug out the truffles.

If truffles are dug up, it is relatively easy to distinguish them. They have a strange shape and an aroma of dried fruit. Aristocrats like Lancaster, who often eat truffles, can recognize them at a glance.

Truffles are different from all other natural resources, dig them out as soon as you find them, because their growth cycle is only one year.

Moreover, its size has nothing to do with its age, it only grows with the changes of the seasons, death and birth.

Generally speaking, black truffles enter the mature period in about December until March of the following year, when overripe truffles will rot and disintegrate.

Because the weather in New Zealand is exactly the opposite of that in the northern hemisphere, there are no fresh truffles in Europe at this time, while countries such as New Zealand and Australia happen to produce truffles.

Among the many types, French black truffles and Italian white truffles are the most highly rated. But New Zealand truffles are also quite famous, because when they are produced, most of the producing countries often have no truffles, and they are rare and expensive.

After digging up the truffles, Lancaster sliced ​​open the largest one with a saber, revealing the deep black fungus inside, with intricate marbled veins resembling good beef.

After packing up the truffles, the group stopped training, and Lancaster led the group away.

Wang Bo asked with a smile: "Don't you look around anymore? Maybe you can find other truffles."

Lancaster shook his head regretfully and said: "The nutrients of truffles come from the attached tree roots and soil. If truffles grow in a place, the nutrients of the land and plants will be absorbed by the truffles, and nothing else can grow for a period of time. Of course, there will only be one truffle in a piece of land, not a large number."

Wang Bo thinks not necessarily, he thinks these truffles are related to the woodland heart just used.

But this is just a guess, because the heart of the woodland doesn't have that powerful effect, and these truffles can be born out of thin air just after using it for one night.

After these years of research, he discovered that these territorial hearts can only play a role in optimizing and promoting the site, such as the heart of the pasture, which can change the quality of forage and optimize the breed of livestock.

However, it cannot give birth to an animal out of thin air.

In the same way, the Heart of the Woodland can improve the quality of the land, improve the environment, and allow truffles to survive better, but it is impossible to produce some truffles, let alone do this in one night.

But even improving the environment to make it suitable for truffle growth is rare.

Truffles can't stand any slight changes in the environment during the growth process. It's picky about the environment is really staggering. It is one of the few delicacies in the world that cannot be artificially planted in an orderly manner. A symbiotic relationship acquires nutrients.

In addition, truffles prefer alkaline soil, and high-quality truffles are mainly produced in calcareous terrain areas, such as Alba in Italy, Perigo in France, and Yunnan in China, all of which are located in calcareous terrain areas.

The Southern Alps are also calcareous landforms, so truffles are also produced in other areas. However, the mechanized farming methods, the soil being sprayed with pesticides, excessive or insufficient rainfall, and changes in forest tree species have caused the production of truffles to decline year by year.

It’s not that Lancaster no longer looks for truffles here. He said that when he returns to the UK, he will buy a sow specially trained to collect truffles and come here for a treasure hunt.

There is a kind of truffle hunter in Europe, they use the sow as a right-hand man to harvest black truffles.

Sows have an extremely keen sense of smell, and can smell truffles buried 25 cm to 30 cm deep in the ground from a distance of 6 meters. This is because the smell of truffles is similar to androstenol, which induces sex drive in sows, so sows have a soft spot for them.

Lancaster usually has nothing to do in London or Yorkshire. He likes hunting, and digging black truffles is also regarded as a kind of hunting among European nobles.