some very thinly sliced truffle

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discomorphella
Posts: 63
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2005 9:53 pm
Location: NW United States

some very thinly sliced truffle

Post by discomorphella »

Its not well known, but here in the NW USA we have some of the finest (white) truffles in the world. Its even less well known that trufles have some of the most interesting spores to look at...so when I dug a few up I dusted off the old 820 and got out the paraformaldehyde and cellosolve and paraplast etc., mixed up a batch of stains and here are some 6 um paraffin sections of Tuber gibbosum, the Oregon white truffle. The spores are spiky, reticulated ellipsoids ca. 50 x 25 um. The sample (the parts I didn't eat that is) is fixed in buffered formalin, dehydrated with cellosolve, cleared in toluene and embedded in paraplast. Sections were stained with Ehrlich's hematoxylin and Johansen's Fast Green. Note that the mature spore coats (unstained, yellow) don't take up any hematoxylin, but the immature spores do, along with nuclei in the hyphae and other structures. The tubules and asci (spore sac) walls are counterstained with Fast Green FCF. Images were minimally processed with imageJ. Optical conditions are:

BF illumination (12V halogen / kohler)
10X / 0.45 or 100X / 1.4 Planapo objectives
10X Periplan GW HP relay
Kodak DX4350 5 Mpxl camera

They are as tasty as they are fun to look at...now if I could only train my dog to find more....

--David

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Mike
Posts: 217
Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2004 10:26 am
Location: Northeast Ohio, USA

Post by Mike »

Hello David,

These are really nice shots!

If you have some extra truffles (the unstained, unfixed variety) I know a good use for them - just send them over this way.

All the best,
Mike
"Nil satis nisi optimum"

Charles Krebs
Posts: 1200
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2004 10:50 am
Location: Issaquah, WA USA

Post by Charles Krebs »

David... wow... quite an elaborate recipe! I generally go with a little olive oil and butter.

Seriously though, very nicely done. Beautiful details and patterns.

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discomorphella
Posts: 63
Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2005 9:53 pm
Location: NW United States

Post by discomorphella »

Thanks Mike and Charlie--

Yes, its true, the recipe for a Hematoxylin and Fast Green Truffle is a bit more elaborate than for truffled rice...and the fixed ones keep a bit better too, but the flavor suffers after being in formalin....next I'm going to try a squash prep, so the entire spore surface can be seen, not just the cross-section. There are undoubtedly some growing under Douglas Fir near you Charlie, you just have to scratch about under the roots, and get a bit of luck...

--David

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