GEM UNDER THE SANDS!

We very well know most of the starchy tubers, such as sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), yam (discorea), potato (sulanum tuberosum), to name a few, but not so many are familiar with truffles, especially the desert truffles. What are truffles? They are species of the mushroom family, and are distantly related to the more pungent and costly European truffles. Numerous varieties grow from Morocco to Saudi Arabia, but the desert of Syria and Iraq produces two main types, known by the Arabic name, “kamah” or "fagah".

Truffles are the valuable and sought-after, edible fruting bodies of a group subterranean ascomycete species from the fungal genus tuber. They are highly prized as a food, their smell has been described as similar to deep-fried sunflower seeds or walnuts. They spring from microscopic spores distributed just underneath the surface of the sand. The Arabs are saying that lightning triggers a chemical reaction that makes the accompanying rain rich in nitrogen compounds, which prompt the truffles to grow. Without thunderstorms, they do not appear. The Bedouins call them “the potatoes of thunder”.

As they reach the size of golf balls, they begin to crack the surface of sand, appearing as a field of bumps across the desert. The cracks indicate that truffles lie just beneath the surface. If the truffles are not dug up during the few weeks of winter rains, they pop up onto the surface and burst once the sand dries out.

Desert truffles …. are they the Biblical manna from heaven?