Breaking the Association of Pigs and Truffles

The Los Angeles Times ran a nice article (here) this morning about the spike in truffle prices in France, largely due to a drought that has reduced the size of the annual harvest. The article is accompanied by a picture of a truffle hunter and his dog, not his pig. It goes on to note, sadly, that "truffle-hunting pigs--bigger, hungrier and harder to manage--have largely fallen out of favor." Perhaps this headline in The Onion--"Airport Security Pig Finds Concealed Truffles"--was a sign of the times. For a brief history of why pigs have traditionally proved so good at finding truffles, see this 1982 article by Walter Sullivan in the New York Times.