Cicero deemed them children of the earth, while Dioscorides thought they were tuberous roots. Italy, in the Classical Period, produced two kinds of truffles: the Tuber melanosporum and the Tuber magnatum. The Romans, however, only used the terfez (Terfezia bouderi), a fungus of similar appearance which the Romans called truffles, and which is sometimes called "desert truffle."

The first mention of truffles appears in the inscriptions of the neo-sumerians regarding their Amorite enemy's eating habits. It is narrated in the hadith Sahih Muslim that the Muslim prophet Muhammad said, "Truffles are 'Manna' which Allah, sent to the people of Israel, and its juice is a medicine for the eyes." Terfezia was the main truffle consumed in the Middle East historically, and Ludovico di Varthema, in his Travels (1503-08), wrote of great quantities of them being sold, having been harvested in the mountains of Armenia and Turkey.

Truffles were rarely used during the Middle Ages though they were mentioned as being used at the court of the Avignon Papacy. It is said that the popes discovered them when they relocated to Avignon, near the producing regions of upper Provence, and they became very fond of them. Truffle hunting is mentioned by Bartolomeo Platina, the papal historian, in 1481, when he recorded that the sows of Notza were without equal in hunting truffles, however they should be muzzled to prevent them from eating the prize.

During the Renaissance, truffles regained popularity in Europe and were honored at the court of King Francis I of France. However, it was not until the 17th century that the truffle was rediscovered along with the natural flavor of foodstuffs. Truffles were very popular in Parisian markets in the 1780s. They were imported seasonally from truffle grounds, where peasants had long enjoyed their secret. Brillat-Savarin (1825) noted characteristically that they were so expensive, they appeared only at the dinner tables of great nobles and kept women. A great delicacy was a truffled turkey. "I have wept three times in my life," Rossini admitted. "Once when my first opera failed. Once again, the first time I heard Paganini play the violin. And once when a truffled turkey fell overboard at a boating picnic.'