Re: Why Pigs Can Sniff Out Truffles...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rainwalker99
By WALTER SULLIVAN, NYTimes
Published: March 24, 1982
Truffles are rare and expensive as it is. They would be far more so, were it not for the remarkable ability of pigs to sniff them out from as deep as three feet underground.
The explanation, it seems, relates to the sex life of pigs - and perhaps of human beings as well. Researchershave found that truffles contain large quantities of a substance also synthesized in the testes of boars. In the boars it is secreted into their saliva when they court females. The Germans report that the substance's musklike scent, ''emanating from the saliva foam, is smelled by the sow and prompts her standing reflex.''
The chemical is twice as abundant in truffles as in the blood plasma of boars. Furthermore, it and related steroids are produced in the testes of human males and secreted by their armpit sweat glands.
This substance has a psychological effect on human beings as well. Researchers showed pictures of normally clad women to male and female subjects, some of whom were also exposed to the musky odor of the substance, described chemically as 5a-androst-16-en-3a-ol.
The subjects were asked to grade the photographed women for sexual attractiveness. Those who had sniffed the substance gave higher grades than did the others.
Such an effect, it is proposed, might also account for the human predilection for truffles.
(Edited)
Yes....er...thanks for that Rainwalker, I am well aware of the scourcing, harvesting, and preparation of truffles, you may have enlightened some other members though.
So..yes thanks Rainwalker, we can all only hope for a deluge SOON!