WNC couple, their truffle-hunting dogs fuse foodie culture with Appalachian terrain

By MATTHEW YATES

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    WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA (WLOS) — Western North Carolina is known for its beautiful mountains and, in recent years, its growing food scene. One local couple is combining those to help shine a light on a unique, locally grown ingredient with an international reputation.

As with anything new, the first steps on any journey begin with at least a little uncertainty. A few years back, while at an NC Cooperative Extension presentation, Luke Gilbert asked why growing truffles couldn’t be successful in this area.

“She said there’s no market for them. The market hasn’t been established, so you can’t grow something that there’s no value for,” Gilbert said.

But with each step taken, a little more confidence is gained.

For Natalie Gilbert, her journey began the first time she tried wild mushrooms.

“I just tried it, tried them and loved them and wanted to learn more,” she said. “Then I just got bit by the foraging bug, and it wasn’t just mushrooms. It was just, what can I eat? What’s medicinal? What’s usable?”

Luke’s journey began while in college.

“When I was at NC State and I was working at a hydroponic farm, and there was a group of guys who was, who were growing organically outdoors on the same lot of land that the greenhouse I was on,” he said.

He was curious about the foods being brought in from outside.

“But they were inspirations to me about actually getting out into the woods and foraging because they brought coolers worth full of papaws to the greenhouses I was working at,” Luke said.

That experience pointed him in the right direction.

“I was 22 years old at the time but was amazed that something that tasted so good could be kept secret from me for so long,” he said.

Right off the Appalachian Trail, he took a foraging class taught by Natalie.

The two shared a bond — searching for wild foods. But they knew there could be more to their shared hobby.

Luke recalled having too many mushrooms on his hands after foraging back east.

“Without even knowing my name or credentials, I could call cold call and say, ‘I’ve got 20 pounds of chicken of the woods, do you guys want it? ‘And they would be doing backflips, so excited that I was going to bring them wild mushrooms,” he said.

With growing confidence in their skills, the couple founded Wild Goods and knew they could use some extra company on their journey. A couple years back, Natalie was struck by inspiration as she waited for Luke to prepare dinner.

“I was like, OK, listen to this article. I was reading it out loud to him. He was making us a dinner and I was like, by the end of it, I was like, whoa, look at those truffle dogs. Let’s get one. It’s almost my birthday. I need a birthday gift,” she said. “We forage. I know that if we try to do this, if they’re really out there, we have all the people who already forage thousands of pounds of mushrooms. We can do it, you know?”

While pigs are associated with truffle hunting in popular culture, the dogs are gentler with the treasure.

“If you have a 500-pound pig and they want the truffle and you want the truffle, there’s a lot of nine-fingered truffle hunters in Europe,” Natalie said.

But the main secret to finding those elusive spores?

“The real key to getting out there and finding the truffles is you. You have to train yourself to get out there into those habitats in the bad weather,” Natalie said. “Like, you know, even if it’s pouring rain and or snowing and you have orders to fill, you have to go out there and get them to seriously, seriously do the truffle hunting as a business.

A unique business from a unique journey with a fulfilling wild ingredient.

“I love our job, and I always feel like it’s a job that if you were like an elf, this would be like a job that like the elf does. Like, we go in the woods, we find mushrooms, we bring them, and people are so excited and happy to have them,” Natalie said.

It’s a feeling she hopes others can experience in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

“Foraging is something that I think everyone should do. I think that everyone is capable of doing it, and it’s something that is necessary for us as a population of humans to do because our forests are one of the most valuable things that we have, especially in this area,” Natalie said. “People come from all over the world to visit the Smokies and our Pisgah and everything we have to offer here and to teach people that there are treasures just buried in the ground. And to continue to enjoy those, we need to continue to preserve our forests.”

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