Balkan Road Trip - 15. Truffle Hunting in Istria

The truffle hunter's eyes sparkled as he recounted the night he came across the largest trophy of his career.

"You see, I needed money for a car," Miro Kotiga recalled days of his youth in the former Yugoslavia, a factory worker by day and a rogue truffle hunter by night while his comrades were sound sleep, "and truffles was a way to make extra money."


"I searched for three, four hours with my dog and found nothing -- not even a tiny truffle," his voice deepened with a resolute tenacity, "but I decided to go back one last time." A whole night's wandering in pitch dark may sound perilous, but this was a man who roamed these ancient forests as his childhood playground and knew every footpath like the veins on his hand.


Truffles are mysterious creatures as Miro explains. A truffle hunter could go in circles for hours without a whiff of its presence, until the moment the truffle decides to emit its unmistakable aroma -- detectable only by the hunter's canine companion -- only for the short span of an hour or so.


Experience and intimate knowledge of the terroir play key roles, after which simple perseverance determines between jackpot for the truffle hunter versus a tasty treat for the roaming wild boars. Despite all the trade secrets Miro learned at a young age from his grandfather and father, it took a Hail Mary to chance upon the elusive nugget right when it started to release its perfume.


It was Miro's night as he walked away with a gigantic half-kilogram Istrian white truffle, plump, pungent and most importantly, unearthed entirely unbroken. Needless to say Miro found down payment for his car and then some.


In time, Miro saved enough money to buy his own piece of the forest as private truffle hunting ground and started a business of truffle products. He still trains truffle hounds and keeps their noses sharp with daily hunts, which visitors like ourselves can join for a reasonable price that includes a hearty lunch with shaved fresh truffles from the hunt -- assuming that we would find at least one.


This was the tail end of the summer black truffle season when the thirteen of us followed Miro's lead into his private forest of dense oaks and birches in the shadow of medieval Motovun. To increase annual yield, Miro has purposely "infected" many of his trees over the years with the truffle fungus, a mysterious practice that bordered on sorcery to outsiders.


But the real leaders were his dogs: trusty little Bella, a bronze-haired 6-year-old in the prime of her truffle hunting career, followed by the energetic Nera, a black-haired 2-year-old still learning the trade under Miro's tutelage. If you're wondering about their Italian-sounding names, that's one of Miro's two native tongues as a native Istrian.


Truffle hounds should not be full-blooded hounds, explained Miro, as hounds are naturally inclined to chase after birds and small game rather than concentrating on their assignment. Even with Miro's careful selection and painstaking training of his working dogs, there were still times when the two wandered off the trail and had to be retrieved by Miro.


On this day it was young Nera that struck first, uncovering two black truffles within the first fifteen minutes of our morning hunt. As always Miro had to step in swiftly to prevent Nera's digging motions from breaking the truffle, after which Nera was awarded with a treat of truffle-oil-dipped bread.


Bella's experience eventually paid dividend as her determination revealed a walnut-sized black truffle that Miro himself missed upon initial examination of a spot that she had pinpointed. She would discover two more to conclude a fruitful morning to the delight of spectators from both sides of the Atlantic.


With five truffles in Miro's bag we headed back to his villa where a generous feast of truffle products was being prepped by his wife Mirjana. This was not a heavy lunch of Istrian pasta and beef gulash, but a spread of antipasti selected to showcase the delicate flavours of both black and white truffles collected by Miro and his network of hunters.


Shots of homemade grappa kicked off our lunch of three types of truffle butters and tapenades on toast, Kulen sausages with specks of black truffle, two different truffle-infused cheeses, a tomato salad drizzled with truffle oil, all washed down with glasses of Malvazija, full-bodied Teran or sweet elderflower water.


Any cheese or salume naturally becomes an lavish delicacy in the presence of black truffles, especially when paired with a mellow Malvazija from the local vineyards just down the road.


This was the best opportunity to sample Miro's assortment of black and white truffle sauces, available for purchase not only at his shop in Motovun but as far away as the farmer's market at Rovinj as we later encountered. I ended up buying two large jars of my favorite white truffle sauce for sharing with family members in Canada.


Highlight of the meal was the Mirjana show when she prepared a communal dish of scrambled eggs with shavings of the truffles collected from our earlier hunt. Apparently our five black truffles wasn't enough to feed all thirteen of us, and she had to throw in more fresh truffles from her kitchen.


This was easily the most truffle shavings I had ever seen in my life, a small mount ready to be swirled into the melted butter and eggs. Every guest surrounded the hot plate to see this rare spectacle while the aroma started to fill the room.


Noisy conversations turned into nothing but moans and exclamations as servings of scrambled eggs arrived at each table with more freshly shaved truffles on top. I think I consumed more truffles at this one meal than the rest of my life combined.


As if the amount of truffles served was not enough, Mirjana brought out a dessert of airy chocolate cakes sprinkled with honey and even more shaved truffles, a surprising combination that surely convinced everyone of the supremacy of truffles as the most sophisticated yet versatile ingredient ... cleverly before introducing her epicerie of truffle products and offering a slight discount to the guests.


Truffle hunting with Miro and his dogs was certainly one of our favorite memories of Croatia, an educational as well as gastronomic experience that I would recommend to anyone visiting Istria in truffle season -- which is nearly year round between Istrian white truffles and summer black truffles.

But what if you absolutely can't join a truffle hunting tour with a bad knee, let's say?

Well, we did find another place in Motovun serving fresh truffles at reasonable prices.

Restaurant Review: KONOBA FAKIN (Motovun) (Location Map)

Occupying the best possible location along Motovun's medieval town wall, Konoba Fakin appeared almost intimidating to these budget travelers until we peeked at its menu with affordable sub-100-kuna entrees. Anything with fresh truffles would cost an additional 35 to 70 kuna (5 to 10 euros) of course, still a relative bargain compared with the rest of the world.


Now this was the evening before joining Miro for the truffle hunt, at which point my wife still hated truffles after an overpowering experience with a black truffle fondue from years back. But we arrived at one of the world's truffle capitals within the short window every September when both black and white truffles are in season, and we could not resist sampling both.


We decided to share one dish with black truffles and one with white, starting with a plate of grilled pork neck medallions covered generously with black truffle shavings. It did not matter that the pork arrived overcooked and dry -- the unmistakable, delightful pungency of fresh truffles automatically made it one of our favorite pork dishes -- and forever reversed my wife's aversion for black truffles ahead of visiting Miro the next morning.


But it was the white truffles that became our absolute highlight in Istria.

In retrospect I should give the chef credit for a perfectly seared tenderloin, but the beef simply paled in comparison to the dreamy earthiness of fresh white truffles, accentuated by the purist combination with melted butter. Both of us remember this as the pinnacle of all dishes we sampled in Croatia, at a price (198 kuna or 27 euros) that would be considered a bargain just about anywhere else in the world.


As the sun set we continued to savour the Malvazija and Teran from the proprietor's award-winning winery below the medieval hill town. While the peppery Teran was a good match for red meat, it was the soft Malvazija that paired beautifully with the white truffles. Two days in charming Motovun, and we learned more about truffles that we ever expected.

Meal for Two Persons

Mixed Salad	31.5 Kuna
Pork Neck with Black Truffles	117 Kuna
Beef Tenderloin with White Truffles	198 Kuna
Glass of Malvazija	18 Kuna
Glass of Teran	18 Kuna
Bottle of Water	22.5 Kuna
TOTAL	405 Kuna (CAD$82.7)

IF YOU GO

Organized truffle hunts can be booked online at Miro Tartufi and several other truffle hunters between Motovun and Buzet. For visitors relying on public transport, Miro's operation is easily accessible as their house is merely 500m away from the bus stop at the bottom of Motovun's hill.

Balkan Road Trip - 14. Five Hill Towns of Istria

There is something uniquely charming about Istria that distinguishes it from the rest of the Balkans, perhaps its Italianate towns atop gentle rolling hills reminiscent of Umbria or Tuscany, populated in part by Italian speakers who swear by their homebrewed grappa rather than rakija.


In retrospect we're glad that we squeezed this historic crossroad of Slavic and Latin (and to a lesser degree, Germanic) cultures into our Balkan itinerary, spending four days between Istria's azure coastline and its hill country of fortified medieval towns, quaint, underpopulated with relatively few visitors compared with Croatian heavyweights such as Dubrovnik and Split.


To foodies this is also one of the world's major producing regions for truffles, starting with summer black truffles in May and culminating with a major festival in November at the peak of white truffle season. The prospect of joining a countryside truffle hunt led by truffle hounds proved irresistible as we booked our apartment at the heart of truffle country in Motovun, in mid September when the seasons for black and white truffles just happen to intersect.


For the first time after visiting nearly 20 countries in Europe over the years, we rented a car for multiple days for this picturesque but hard-to-get-around region in Croatia. While coastal cities such as Pula and Rovinj were well-connected by highway buses, reaching the smaller inland towns would not be so convenient without a private vehicle.


It still wasn't easy. Croatian countryside roads turned out nervously narrow for our unfamiliar Audi A4, impeccable on highways but nerve-wrackingly tight on blind hairpin turns on the cliff side with another vehicle barreling in the opposite direction. Combined with a GPS that occasionally guided us to sketchy shortcuts through forested dirt roads, the ominous thought of barging into an uncleared minefield from the Yugoslav Wars -- which still exist in certain parts of Croatia -- came up more than once.

Hill Town #1 - Hum

It was a major sigh of relief as we arrived at our first Istrian hill town and our lunch stop, the pint-sized citadel of Hum with 15th century ramparts and a functional town gate still defending its surviving collection of stone houses and Venetian castle.


Self-proclaimed as the Smallest Town in the World with a permanent population of 21, Hum punches above its weight with multiple shops and wineries, several B&Bs in high season and one restaurant that turned out surprisingly but perhaps justifiably busy.

Restaurant Review: HUMSKA KONOBA (Hum) (Location Map)

Nearly every visitor would congregate here at lunchtime, and not just because of the reasonable prices Konoba Humska charges for their classic Istrian fare. We're in the middle of nowhere after all, and the next closest restaurant would be a 20 minutes drive down the winding dirt road into the valley.


A three course table d'hôte of soup, pasta and dessert cost a cheap 85 kuna (12 euros) and started with this traditional Manestra, the Istrian adaptation of Minestrone with the standard of beans, onions and tomatoes, and in this case loads of sweet corn.


As expected the pasta turned out to be the Istrian specialty of Fuži, a thick sheet noodle hand-rolled around a stick and served here with a chunky beef gulash in a robust wine sauce.


Our favorite was this simple and scrumptious dish of deep-fried Kroštule. My wife was right to stop me from ordering another set of table d'hôte as the portions were quite generous, and an extra dish of scrambled eggs with Istrian prsut was enough to compliment our lunch.

Meal for Two Persons

Three Course Menu	85 Kuna
Scrambled Eggs with Istrian Prsut and Mushrooms	45 Kuna
Bread	2 Kuna
Bottle of Sprite	15 Kuna
Bottle of Water	12 Kuna
TOTAL	159 Kuna (CAD$32.4)

Hill Town #2 - Motovun

The road towards our homebase of Motovun was smooth and straightforward until the final stretch beneath the town, where the approach from the north was closed for construction and we were forced onto a 20 minute diversion on a dirt road to the southern side of town.


Luckily our apartment rental included its own parking spot midway up the main switchback road, underneath a 100-year-old olive tree a couple minutes from the apartment. From our front steps it would be a 5 minute uphill hike to Motovun's townsquare and a 5 minute downhill walk to the supermarket at the bottom.


Like most buildings in Motovun, our rental apartment was a 500-year-old Venetian stone house with a bathroom on ground floor, kitchen and living room on second, and two bedrooms on the upper levels sharing possibly the airiest ceiling of any house we have ever rented.


Featured on Croatia's Tentative List for UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the hill town of Motovun -- or Montona for those old enough to remember the Fascist era -- has preserved much of its Italian character with its Renaissance town square and medieval ramparts adorned with the Winged Lion of Venice.


In the shadow of its 400-year-old catholic church is a large mural dedicated to the town's talismanic mascot, the gentle giant known as Veli Jože living in Motovun's forests and adored all over Istria.


Visitors could freely explore the laidback town until a few years back when the government decided to charge an entrance fee for a 300m section of the town walls for its easterly panorama of the Istrian hills. It does not stop visitors from walking underneath that same section of the town walls however, to a parking terrace on Barbican ulica offering essentially the same vista.


Our most memorable picture of the Istrian countryside was the veil of morning mist outside our bedroom window above these rolling hills. It was the most idyllic image that belied the past century of volatile relations between Italian- and Slavic-speaking populations here in Istria.


It is too easy for today's blissful tourists to ignore the past decades when Mussolini abolished all Croatian schools in a campaign of forced Italianization, followed by violent retaliations of the Yugoslav era when five out of six Italian-speaking Istrians moved away from their homeland, voluntarily or involuntarily.

Hill Town #3 - Grožnjan

These days Italian heritage is making a big comeback in Istria, epitomized by the picturesque town of Grožnjan, or Grisignana to its Italian-speaking majority of residents. Normally a short 18 km drive from Motovun, it became 30 km for us due to the aforementioned road constructions.


Arguably the most Italianate town in Istria with palaces and townsquares dating from the height of the Renaissance, Grožnjan functioned as the administrative centre for these hinterlands of Venetian Istria where Italian colonists settled around townships as opposed to Croat peasants in the open country.


The main square's 400-year-old arches has witnessed multiple rises and falls including a time before WWI when Grožnjan prospered as a major stop along the narrow guage railway to Trieste, exporting its quarried stones and olive oil to the rest of Austria-Hungary. It all ended in the 1930s with the dismantling of the rail line, followed by decades of impoverishment and emigration.


It was more than 50 years ago when the government reinvented the dying town as a colony of artists, now attracting dozens of domestic and international talents with an enviable collection of small galleries, a summer jazz festival and seasonal concerts along its charming cobblestone alleys and medieval squares.


With its Italian aesthetics and Bohemian vibe, Grožnjan would have made as good a homebase as Motovun for exploring Northern Istria, though Motovun is probably closer to the heart of truffle country for gourmands.

Hill Town #4 - Završje

For an idea of what Grožnjan would have become had the artists not taken over 50 years ago, we drove 20 minutes to the nearby village of Završje, the remnants of a medieval fiefdom of farmers and tanners built upon the ruins of an ancient Roman fort.


Once known as Piemonte d'Istria and connected to Grisignana/Grožnjan via the now-defunct narrow guage railway, Završje has been slowly reduced to a dilapidated collection of crumbling stone houses after the closure of its train station and mass emigration of its ethnic Italian population during the Istrian exodus.


The dozen remaining residents have managed to keep Završje from deteriorating into a ghost town with one seasonal cafe and an agroturizam operation on the hillside, ideal for a week of doing absolutely nothing except watching the local goatherder tend his flock of less than ten goats.


Surviving monuments include an 11th century castle with defensive ramparts and town gates bearing the family insignia of medieval rulers, plus several churches including the 16th century Blessed Virgin Mary that doubled as the village school nearly a century ago. Restoration funds from the EU is said to be earmarked for this hard-to-reach village in the heartland of Istria, so let's see what happens in a few years.

Hill Town #5 - Oprtalj

A further twenty minutes took us to our fifth hill town over two days. Situated across the Mirna valley from Motovun is the ancient walled town of Oprtalj/Portole, perched upon a small ridge just north of Livade where the famous truffle festival is held every November.


Featuring a handsome Venetian loggia from the town's Renaissance past, Oprtalj originated as a Roman fortress like Završje and came back under the influence of Rome when Italy annexed the region after WWI. Many Italians did leave with the Istrian exodus of the 1950s, though the langauge is still widely spoken especially now with Croatia's ascension to the EU.


Meanwhile descendants of the original Venetians remain key to the cultural fabric as the Istrian counties in both Croatia and Slovenia are officially bilingual, offering citizens the choice of speaking Italian in court in addition to Croatian here or Slovenian on the opposite side of the border, just 6 km north of Oprtalj.


We ended our long drive with a casual but amusingly Istrian dinner of Croatian cevapcici with Italian pizza, certainly far from the best of gastronomic offers at one of the Europe's capitals of truffles. Did I mention that we joined a truffle hunt led by a Motovun local with his two truffle hounds? Yes, that would be the subject of the next post.

IF YOU GO

The closest airports to the heartland of Istria are Pula and Trieste, both served by low-cost airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair. From either airport, frequent highway buses cross national boundaries along the coast between Trieste, Koper, Porec, Rovinj and Pula. While it is possible to reach Motovun and Grožnjan by public buses, a rental car offers much time savings and the option to visit smaller towns such as Hum, Završje and Oprtalj.