Will chef Tanka Sapkota find the treasure of the woods in Portugal? Truffle hunting is taking over the country – News
Awarded in Alba, in 2019, the title of “Knight of the White Truffles” by the Order of Knights of Tartufo de Alba, chef Tanka Sapkota, of Nepalese origin, is the owner of the restaurants Come Prima, Forno d’Oro, Il Market and Nepalese House. Since the beginning of January of this year, Tanka Sapkota has toured several promising areas in the national territory, with the help of Giovanni Longo, a truffle hunter from Piedmont (Italy), and his two trail dogs Lola and Laika.
“Receiving the diploma from Alba represented great pride for me, but even better would be to be able to find this wonderful raw material in Portugal, or manage to cultivate it, as the conditions exist. There is basic work, based on scientific and geological data, in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of the Environment, Instituto Superior de Agronomia and the Universities of Évora, Coimbra and Lisbon. We believe that the truffle can be a symbol of the appreciation that a gastronomic product can make for a region, both in terms of tourism and economics. And what could be done in Portugal around the iconic products of each region”, argues Tanka Sapkota.
“Some forests that have virtually no economic use could, thanks to this discovery, be exploited in their own right, with returns as interesting as other forestry species in the country, such as the cork oak, pine or eucalyptus. If we were able to reach these levels of income, we would be conserving nature and, at the same time, boosting local economies.”, adds Pedro Bingre do Amaral, Professor of Forest Engineering, Environment and Planning at the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra.
The truffle is a hypogeal, or subterranean, mushroom that occurs naturally near the roots of holm oaks, oaks and poplars, in alkaline soils, with a neutral pH, with high levels of limestone and silicates. In Portugal, truffles are so rare that a ‘lode’ that would give rise to sustained exploitation has never been identified, and it is this obstacle that chef Tanka is now trying to overcome. Four weeks of field work are being carried out, and all samples will be sent to the laboratory for validation. The white truffle is the rarest and most valuable, but there are also black, red and other types of truffles. The Alentejo, for example, is known for its “desert truffles”, or tubers, which occur more in sandy soils and cuts (also found in Beira Baixa and Beira Litoral).
Chef Tanka has been working with this product since 1992 and serves it to his customers every year. Remember that the Nepalese chef managed to bring to Portugal a white truffle weighing 1153 grams, the largest of the decade in Europe, and one of the largest in history. To get an idea, the market value of the white truffle is around 7000 euros/kg, with the black truffle at 1500 euros/kg.
Arriving in Portugal in 1996, after having lived and worked in Germany and Italy, Tanka Sapkota fell in love with and specialized in Italian cuisine. Today, he owns four restaurants in Lisbon, where they serve excellent food.