In the new film “Pig,” Nicolas Cage plays a prominent Portland chef named Robin Feld who left the city’s high-end restaurant scene to live in the Oregon wilderness, where he forages for truffles with his beloved pig.
Robin Feld’s journey to find his pig unearths a dark side of the truffle industry, full of rivalry and sabotage.
As far back as the Roman Empire, female pigs were used for their keen nose for truffles, the smell of which is similar to the mating pheromones of male pigs.
In Northern Italy and southeastern France, where the most expensive truffles grow, the price can top $10,000 a pound.
A fully trained Lagotto Romagnolo, the Italian dog breed prized for its truffling abilities, can cost as much as $10,000, and stealing such dogs is a common crime among rival hunters.
As with Mr. Cage’s Robin and his expropriated pig, it is a blow to the handler when a dog is taken.
I think it’s almost a universal experience with truffle dog handlers to have an enormous amount of pride,” said Mr. Lefevre, who truffle hunts recreationally with his two Lagotto Romagnolos, Mocha and Dante.
Before writing “Pig,” he had never been to Portland, and had only eaten truffles once.
Gabriel Rucker, the chef at Le Pigeon, and Chris Czarnecki, the chef at Joel Palmer House, in Dayton, Ore., consulted on the film.
Oregon is home to hundreds of species of truffles, with four edible varieties.
Truffle poachers use large rakes to dig and churn up everything below the forest floor, unearthing delicate root systems along with ripe and unripe truffles.
For Mr. Sarnoski the man-pig relationship represents Robin Feld’s more traditional, bucolic way of life.
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