What I can do is recount my experience, being the first female figure in four generations of ‘Trifulau’ in my family.

For many years I did not want to continue the family business, for various reasons such as having other passions or realising early on that working in a family certainly gives you advantages but there are just as many obstacles.

After doing studies that took me far away and trying out various jobs, a crucial moment in my life came when I chose the advantageous side and decided to stay permanently in the home business. For a few years I was very much a ‘worker’, skilfully dodging responsibility, which was not good for me, creating such frustration and tension in the work environment and obviously in my family that I was driven away from this job one more time. Once again, after the pandemic, I was faced with a choice and decided to return home for good.

The realisation that I could no longer dodge responsibility was immediately clear to me, and so it was that one morning before dawn I woke up and joined my grandfather who was leaving for the famous Asti market (a gathering of fresh truffle seekers and buyers).

Two days a week it was my regular wake-up call, me driving and my grandfather close by like a real boss, and he really was in the business. Asti was the first stop, after the haggling in town we would make the rounds of our trusted prospectors to continue more intimate haggling. This has always been a male-exclusive ‘tour’, I know many stories, some I have seen or experienced first-hand, of prospectors and traders who were reluctant to show their bundle of truffles, let alone discuss the subject with female figures. All this frightened me, fear of suspicious glances, badly spoken phrases that I knew would hurt and demoralise me. These fears, however, I kept them aside, aware of my strength, a strength that came from a respectable background on the subject, I was born among truffles, I have participated in the life of the shop and the fairs actively since I was in primary schools… in short, I knew what we were talking about and this could not have been swept away by any glances and no ill-judged sentences. What undoubtedly helped me was the fact that I was following in the footsteps of my grandfather who was a formidable truffle hunter and dealer respected and admired by all. What an advantage, right? Yes a great advantage because it gave me a portion of respect ‘won’ a priori. But advantages are of no use if you don’t show that you deserve the respect yourself. Heedless of my feminine gender I followed him for a few years, trying to learn as much as I could until the moment when our gazes synchronised and he always asked me ‘permission’ before closing a negotiation. I earned this permission by overcoming various fears and deciding that I would be the one to have the pulse not only on the purchase but also on the sale of truffles on the farm. When my grandfather became unwell and had to stay at home, I continued our tours alone, proudly taking him to see the ‘spoils’ each time and telling him something of the tour. One day I had bought some nice truffles, I brought them to him and he just asked me in a low voice: ‘Did you do it? Did you do it yourself?’ And I ‘yes of course!’, he made one of his enigmatic smiles that this time I had got

it right, he had passed the baton to me with his eyes bright and proud of his ‘matota’ (girl) who had grown up and had learnt not so much not to make mistakes but to go without fear. My grandfather never cared whether I was a boy or a girl, he always taught me whatever he wanted to teach me, he never made the distinction between what traditionally I stood for and what I could do.

The thing I would like to tell you most is that no one ever gave me a dirty look for being a female, no one ever threw bad phrases at me at random, no one ever refused to deal with me as a woman… yes, I did get a few ‘jibes’, but they are hazards of the trade that have no gender. A few so-so glances I have received but they have always been genderless too, moments that are part of the job and have never had anything to do with a gender issue.

What luck! Some will say… I believe little in luck, I believe that one creates one’s ‘luck’ by working on oneself, studying, having experiences that can make one a structured and competent person. I assure you that a woman with structure and competence is as good as anyone and is ready to face dirty looks, misplaced sentences, critical moments of her being as a female and will have the strength to demonstrate, overcome and if necessary shut up anyone.

In this ‘truffle world’ those who still live with a patriarchal heritage are now surrendering to the fact that the new generations in the environment are almost all female, and those who don’t like it simply risk ending up out of the business.

I don’t think we are all suited to do everything, but I don’t make it a gender issue and I am well aware that there are structural differences between men and women, but if put to good use they would benefit everyone and diminish no one.

Mine is just a story and a subjective opinion, but I invite women to be the first to overcome blockin

g stereotypes and courageously go and see that these were unfounded fears and with the same courage fight the well-founded ones.

Tiziana