The Desert Truffle: Delicacies in the Sand or Manna from Heaven?

Desert truffles are nutritious, and particularly high in protein. In good seasons, truffles are dried and ground to powder to supplement the regular diet. Even though the unique aroma of the truffles cannot be preserved by drying, the nutritious flour is added to a mixture of flatbread, which is then baked and eaten with honey. In times of famine, people have been known to rely on truffles. Particularly compelling is the story of an Iraqi woman who describes bad times during the 1970’s in Baghdad, when her family and neighbors could not get food for months. According to the Iraqi woman, one year truffles were so plentiful that people prepared them in the same way they would normally prepare meat. They ate desert truffles every day for four months, cooking them in every imaginable manner. Yet at the end of this period, she had not tired of them, still finding them nutritious and tasty.

Source: Tom Volk’s Fungus of the Month Terfezia, Tirmania, Kalaharituber, the desert truffle Delicacies in the sand or manna from Heaven?