Truffles in North Holland: they really exist, but where?

Somewhere in North Holland, in a parking lot next to a forest, Martijn Burgers and his dog Dexter are standing next to a large stone. Here, between the cars, he found his first Dutch truffle. He was overjoyed with the rare find. He kept the truffle for weeks, until it almost withered. Finally, he asked a fellow chef to ferment the truffle into miso. “Now I sometimes smell it.”

North Holland has a lot of regional products, but the truffle is perhaps the most special. The rare delicacy simply grows in the Dutch dune forests. Burgers does not want to reveal his locations, but does explain how to search.

Today he is looking for the spring truffle, also called the white truffle. You pay 5,000 euros for a kilo. He warns; the chance that we find it today is very small, it has only been found twice in the Netherlands.

If he finds this variety today, he won’t grate it over his risotto. This then goes in a special bag to Staatsbosbeheer or Naturalis for examination.

The truffle

Truffles are a type of edible mushroom that feed on the sugars of the trees. They only grow underground, so a truffle hunter always has a dog or a pig with him. You don’t have to go deep into the forest to find a good find: you have the best chance in open spaces: “Nooks with air, light and chalk in the ground.”

A lime tree is a good sign; up to fifteen different types of truffles can grow near that tree. Most truffles are found in the Northern Italian region of Piemonte and in the Hungarian forests.

It has only been known for a few years that they also grow in the Netherlands. Researchers found truffle remains from fifteen different types of truffles in a squirrel’s stomach. When Burgers read that, he started looking for it himself.

And not without success. The former chef trained his dog Dexter as a truffle dog and has found hundreds of truffles in the Dutch dune forests in recent years. On a good day he sometimes finds a kilo. He now gives workshops, wild picking walks and also teaches other dogs how to find the truffles.

Myth

For Burgers, the search has something mythical. “Being at the mercy of your animal and finding something that no one else can find, that’s what makes it so special.”

Because the Netherlands does not have a truffle culture, the competition is not as great as in Italy or Hungary. There the forests are divided among the truffle seekers; often older men who know the forest inside out. They keep their locations secret all their lives. Some do not even write down their locations in a booklet, for fear of burglars. It also sometimes happens that truffle dogs are killed.

In the Netherlands, it is still a long way off. Although, says Burgers, he and one of his students only go to the woods at night. “An acquaintance of his must not know that we are looking for her place.”