Author Tom Benjamin talks about what inspired his critically-acclaimed Bologna-set novel The Hunting Season.
Today, authenticity is everything – we may not be able to travel to Italy but at least we can savour the flavours of the country, painstakingly following recipes proclaiming they’ve been handed down from one nonna to another using ingredients from Tuscan farms and Pugliese olive groves. Italians have an appreciation for food unlike any other culture I’ve experienced – they make small talk about it the way the British discuss weather, and have as many regional varieties as Inuits have words for snow. Italians take authenticity seriously.
But ‘counterfeit’ food is a serious global problem, so much so that the FDA has stated the “sheer magnitude of the potential crime” makes prevention difficult. In short, where there’s money to be made, crime will inevitably follow, sniffing out a potential scam as efficiently as a Romagnan truffle dog.
Speaking of dogs, I caught scent of the second in my series of Bologna-set mystery novels when chatting with my friend Paolo over a traditional appetizer of fried egg topped with white truffle (it was October, and the beginning of the season) as we lunched in the hills abutting Bologna.
When Paolo was growing up, truffles were viewed much like any other fungi locally, and his grandfather Enrico’s fondness for heading out in search of them with his trusty Lagotto Romagnolo was regarded as a harmless eccentricity. Paolo recalled he would return with so many truffles his grandmother Agnese didn’t know what to do with them. She used to complain about ‘the stink’ and threw the excess out of the kitchen window until there was quite a pile outside.
Today, truffle hunting is a serious business in Paolo’s home town. In a few months a truffle hunter can earn enough to support them for a year, and if they’re really lucky, they can hit the jackpot – uncover a white truffle that might be auctioned for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many hunters only venture out, illegally, at night to avoid being tracked. Dogs are raised and kept under high security, but this doesn’t stop some being poisoned.
This high-stakes, high-finance dimension to truffles means counterfeits smuggled in from abroad have become a real problem.
Even in the early days counterfeits cropped up, but the trade consisted of little more than a chap turning up at the back door of a restaurant with a pocket full of Albanian truffles and a cheeky smile. Now, what was once a cottage industry has turned into a major criminal enterprise, and legitimate truffle traders and restaurateurs have to be on their guard.
In The Hunting Season, my Bologna-based sleuth Daniel Leicester is tasked with finding a missing American truffle ‘supertaster’ hired to check the provenance of the local truffles. With the aid of a glamorous TV reporter, the trail takes him through the city’s trattorie and on to its surrounding countryside – commonly known as the calanchi, or ‘badlands’.
It was a joy to write The Hunting Season not only because it gave me an excuse to sample plenty of truffle dishes in Paolo’s hometown which, for the purpose of ever being welcomed into a restaurant there again, I have rechristened ‘Boscuri’, but I was able to learn about a phenomenon that has yet to truly emerge from the shadows – everyone, it seems, has a vested interest in keeping counterfeits quiet.
And just as my debut, A Quiet Death In Italy, explored the tensions around the gentrification of Bologna with Daniel’s investigation into the death of an ageing political activist, The Hunting Season invites the reader to a modern Bologna marketing its ‘authenticity’ to tourists but treading a fine line between what Italy values, and its ever-present shadow.
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The Hunting Season
It’s truffle season and in the hills around Bologna the hunt is on for the legendary Boscuri White, worth more than its weight in gold. But when American truffle “supertaster” Ryan Lee goes missing, English detective Daniel Leicester discovers not all truffles are created equal. Did the missing supertaster bite off more than he could chew?
As he goes on the hunt for Ryan Lee, Daniel discovers the secrets behind “Food City,” as Bologna is known—from the immigrant kitchen staff to the full scale of a multi-million Euro business. After a key witness is found dead at the foot of one of Bologna’s famous towers, the stakes could not be higher. Daniel teams up with a glamorous
TV reporter, but the deeper he goes into the disappearance of the supertaster the darker things become. Murder is once again on the menu, but this time Daniel himself stands accused. And the only way he can clear his name is by finding Ryan Lee…
Discover Bologna through the eyes of English detective Daniel Leicester as he walks the shadowy porticoes in search of the truth and, perhaps, even gets a little nearer to solving the mystery of Italy itself.
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