Truffles are weird, lumpy mushrooms that grow underground near the roots of certain trees like oak and hazel. They’re packed with intense flavours and aromas, and chefs shave thin slices of them over pasta and risotto for a small fortune. White truffles from Alba in Italy regularly sell for over $5,000 per kilo - more than gold.
Because truffles grow buried in soil, you can’t just walk through a forest and pick them. Hunters use trained dogs (or, traditionally, pigs) to sniff them out by smell. The fungus actually evolved its strong aroma to attract animals that would dig it up and spread its spores in their droppings.
Despite a century of trying, nobody has figured out how to reliably farm white truffles. They need exactly the right soil, weather, host tree and luck - which is why a single perfect one can fetch tens of thousands of dollars. In 2007, an Italian white truffle sold at auction for around $330,000.
