April 27, 2021 • 40 mins
Truffles are rare, expensive and apparently delicious. Learn all about these earthy fungi today.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and we're the Gastro Boys.
This is stuff you should know. That's probably a podcast
(00:22):
the Gastro Boys. Oh Man, Chuck, it's like we share
our mind sometime. Yeah, that's exactly. Have you ever eaten truffles? Uh? Sure,
I had some popcorn once with truffles and parmesan cheese.
I'm sure it was real truffle. I was trying to
(00:43):
think if I had, and I think, I mean I didn't.
I'm a dummy because I didn't even know if you're like, yeah,
i've had truffle oil. I know what it tastes like.
Spoiler alert, that's not made from real truffles, right, it
would be so expensive you could never do that. So
I thought I had had truffle through that. But then
I think I remember at a staple house here in Atlanta.
(01:06):
I think one of the things on their tasting menu
had truffle shaved truffle on it, but like it wasn't
like an extra hundred dollars to cover your pizza. It
was like a the tiniest little shaving on top of
amuse boush type of thing, right, which is apparently the
way that you're supposed to eat it, like you're supposed
to eat it with a very yeah, very simple dish
(01:28):
where the truffle is this star and just sit there
and cry, maybe take your clothes off so you can
get the full experience, okay and um, and not leave
your house for three days afterward, at least according to
all of the people who have ever been interviewed about truffles,
meaning foodies who talk about this kind of stuff and
(01:49):
use words like celestial and life changing and things like
that when it comes to talking about truffles, So that is,
you know, the truffles are one of the finer things
in life. And another thing that I'd never had either
here at my rip oled age was caviare until a
listener recently who runs the California Caviare company sent some
(02:10):
caviare and I had gone my whole life without trying it,
and I didn't know what to expect. I had no
idea what it would taste like. It was awesome. I
get it now, It's really good. It's like I was.
I was calling it ocean butter. That's kind of what
it reminded me of. It's, you know, briny, but just buttery,
and like it tastes like a rich person's food. And
(02:32):
I totally got it. After I had someone was like,
this is really good and I get it now. Um.
I also want to shout out a couple of people,
since you're talking about the finer things and people who've
sent stuff in. Um uh, all one more time, we
should shout out toad over it down East day Boats
dot Com for the scallops, amazing scallops. Um our buddy
(02:53):
Addison Rex, who's um Jurassic Wines. He likes to send
those once in a while and they're amazing too. Yeah,
he's here. I think I've talked about him before. He
has the company Wine Spies, which is a really kind
of a unique take on a wine club membership. And
I am constantly buying wines and adding them to my
little locker and then once you get twelve bottles in
(03:15):
your locker, you get it shipped all at once. Yeah.
He's just a cool dude all around too. He's awesome.
And then, lastly, do you remember we talked about in
the Groundhog Day episode. Um uh, pig whistle, No, whistle pig. Yes, yes,
pig whistle. I'm so dumb. Um. Whistle pig makes rye.
And they heard us talking about them, or somebody told
(03:37):
them we talked about them, and they sent us like
a whole bunch of rye, like really really good rye.
And I'm here to tell you whistle pig is really
good stuff. I have to say after now having experienced
the firsthand, I haven't been in the office and forever
is there whistle pig on my desk? Yes? Two bottles? Remember,
I don't remember. It was a while ago. Yeah, it's
(03:58):
still it should be still there. If not, we got problems. Yeah, boy,
we need to look at the security team. But we're
talking truffles and we're not talking chocolate truffles. Uh. I
didn't even look this up, but I assume their name
so because they kind of look like truffles, right, That's
what I gathered as well. They're kind of um that
coded in like a cocoa dust like spores a little bit.
(04:22):
And yeah, they're they're bumpy and just kind of ugly.
They do kind of resemble black truffles in a lot
of ways. Let me ask you this, Did you read
the Atlantic article? Uh? No, I did not. Actually, well
it's I skimmed it and I'm gonna read it in
full later. There's this writer, his name is Ryan Jacobs,
who wrote an article in the Atlantic. He was he
(04:43):
was basically on a mushroom story about Porcini mushroom foragers
in Germany and people that weren't you know, sort of
an not an illegal trade, but they were foraging where
they shouldn't be. One of them ran over a forestry
guard with a car and they got away with it.
He called his friend in the UK. It was like, hey,
is there a story here? And he was like, not really,
(05:06):
he said, but if you really want a crime story,
look at truffles. So this guy looked at the truffle
underground truffle market and wrote this article that turned into
a book called The Truffle Underground Colon, a tale of mystery, mayhem,
and manipulation and the shadowy market of the world's most
expensive fungus. And I kind of quickly scanned it and
(05:28):
it is um like anything else in the world, like
fine art or rare wines, anything that's sort of scarce
and rare. There will be crime surrounding it, whether it's
poisoning truffle dogs or blowing up someone's car, or heisting
and robbing people of their truffle take, or selling fraudulent
(05:48):
fake stuff. Selling fraudulent fake stuff I saw. One thing
they would do is try and cram dirt into crevices
to make them heavier. Um, trying to sell diseased like
wormed out truffles and stuff like that. So, just like
anything else rare and expensive, there is a dark side
to it, and truffles are no exception, no note, um,
(06:10):
and truffles are really amazing little creatures. I had no idea. Um.
I mean, I figured that they were, like I think
just about everybody else who never really looked into truffles
that much, that they were very much like mushrooms. Um,
and they are related to mushrooms only in that they
are both part of the same kingdom. Fun guy. So
(06:33):
to say like, um, truffles are related to mushrooms is
basically the same thing as saying that human beings are
related to starfish, because we're both part of the kingdom.
That's how distantly related mushrooms and truffles are. They they
they diverged at the division level, which is right under kingdom.
So they're they're only related in the most basic way
(06:56):
that something can be related, not in any kind of
complex or even loose way whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, one
of the biggest differences between mushrooms and truffles are mushrooms
grow above ground and truffles, as most people know, grow underground,
which is why you need to hunt. And it's called hunting.
It's not technically it's not called foraging or collecting. It's
(07:18):
called truffle hunting that you used to do with pigs
because pigs, you know, don't need to be trained. They
know where to go to get those truffles. Now they
use dogs for a few reasons. One is because dogs
don't want to eat the truffles and pigs do. So
a pig finds that truffle and you gotta then you
gotta get it away from that big like really quick.
(07:40):
Dogs I want to eat those things. Dog just want
to make master happy. And so you can kind of
train a dog to do this and turn it into
a game. And then you know, the other reason listed
here was like you truffle hunt three months out of
the year and then you got a pig for the
other nine months, which I say is great, but other
people are like, these are hundreds of pounds and dogs
are better pets and easier to care right exactly. Um,
(08:02):
the reason people use pigs in the first place, which
seems kind of weird on its face, but truffles produce
a um, a kind of volatile organic compound called andrew
steen all or in drosten all um, and that is
actually the same thing as a sex hormone scent that
(08:22):
male pigs put out. So if you go truffle hunting,
you want to take a female pig because they're actually
rooting out a sex scent. Um. I guess they think that, uh,
a male pig and his junk are buried just you know,
between two and fifteen inches underground, and so they start
rooting through the ground and end up finding truffles and then,
like you said, try to eat it, so you have
to wrestle it away from them. Sweet pigs, they are sweet, um.
(08:46):
But yeah, so dogs make a lot more sense. So
it's pretty rare from what I understand, to see somebody
hunting with a pig these days, unless they're just like
some pipster purist who also like butcher's the pig after
the truffle hunt to you know, um, just out of
respect man. And then um, there's another thing you can do.
If you're like, well, I can't afford a pig, or
I can't afford a dog because I've never found a
(09:08):
truffle and sold one. I'm saving up um. You can
get yourself just a little a little um. There's a
kind of truffle spade called a sapin you can dig
them up with. And there's actually other natural signs that
you can look for um when you look for truffle um.
One is the su Wilia fly, which likes to plant
(09:29):
um itself. It's burrows just above truffles, so you see
this specific kind of fly. If you learn to identify
that fly, you can remind yep. And then also there's
something called the brew ley like cranbrew lay, but it
means burned in French. And it's a dark patch of
earth um around the base of the tree where the
(09:50):
truffles growing. And we'll talk about why they grow there
in a second, but this dark patch of earth is
actually basically antibiotics that um the truffle itself or the
fun guy that the truffle grows from puts out two
poison the ground above it, because it doesn't do very
well if there's a lot of vegetation growing around it.
(10:12):
It does really well growing around among the roots of trees.
It doesn't like a very clear or it doesn't like
a very thick under underbrush. It likes it to be
nice and clear and airy. So it kills off any
potential seeds or or um weeds or grass or anything
that might be growing right above it. And then amazing,
So the truffle says, I shall scorch the earth above me. Exactly, yes, exactly,
(10:37):
that's amazing. So you see those signs, you probably have
a truffle down there. So you don't need a dog
or a pig. You just need to be good at that. Yeah,
true hipster, the kind of the pointy chin beard. They
just look for truffles by hunting for brulet. All right, well,
let's take a break. That's a good setup. Our hipster
(10:58):
is still a thing. I don't know. I haven't been
out of my house in a year or so, so
I can't tell if they're still around or not. Maybe
they all went away during the pandemic. They were they
rethought their lives, and they're gonna come out as sincere,
non ironic humans. All right, which is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna take a break and come back as that
right after this. All right. So, truffles are these underground
(11:43):
things that you eat. I don't even think we said that.
We did. We talked about eating truffles at the beginning.
I guess now I'm all paranoid that we're not explaining
things soon enough. Why because the foodies are listening. Well,
because people are like, you've waited fifteen minutes before you
even said what X was. I think those people are joking.
They're making fun of our paranoia. Yeah, that's how I've
(12:04):
been taking it and thirteen years and it really doesn't matter, right, No,
not at all, as long as people are still listening,
we're doing okay. Truffles are these things that are very rare,
They're hard to find, they're hard to get, they're very expensive,
which we'll get to. Uh. And there are many different kinds.
There are thousands of varieties of truffle. But if you're
talking on a macro level, sort of the basics of
(12:24):
truffles that you would hunt and eat you've got black
truffles and white truffles and burgundy truffles and then some
other you know, lesser known truffles. But you really want
to talk about black and white truffles as the two
leading truffles that you're gonna find on a plate if
you have a lot of money, right, and if if
they're um, you're actually specifically talking about the black French
(12:47):
truffle um, the tuber milani sporum um from Paragore, France,
southwest France. Um. And then that's so that's like the
prized black truffle. The prized white truffle, which is actually
even rarer and even more expensive than the Paregord truffle
um is the tuber magnantum pico, the albo truffle from
(13:10):
the Piedmont area of Italy. And then, like you said,
the burgundy one, right, the black ones. If you if
you look at it, it's sort of like a lumpy um.
It sort of looks like has the texture of like
a leechy, but it's not colorful. It's black and it's
sort of lumpy, and it looks like a clump of dirt.
Maybe some people say it looks like poop um. If
(13:32):
you if you slice it open, it looks like it's
very has that dense marbl ing like a really nice
cut of beef might have, Yeah, like wye goo beef. Yeah,
which is just amazing to see. If have you ever
seen that stuff? For all the beef, for the truffle
the beef. I've seen both, yes, okay, yeah, so why
do you even ask? I don't know, but they do
(13:54):
look alike that that really really dense veiny marbling. The
white truffle, on the other hand, it looks sort of
like a little you know, you know, the little round
white potatoes. It looks like those, not like a baker potato,
but it looks sort of like a white potato. Yeah,
like Yukon gold, but white. Sure. I like the Yukon gold.
(14:15):
Those are good. They're both pungent in the in The
odor apparently, is really hard to describe. I've seen so
many different creative, kind of fun and goofy ways to
describe the aroma of a truffle um. I've heard a
lot of people say they're stinky. Some people say like
locker room like funky earthy, Yeah, funky and earthy. It's
(14:36):
almost as much fun as describing what a theorem in
sounds like exactly. I think burgundy truffles are a little
more aromatic. But you know there, it's a very unique smell,
and I think they're they're kind of stinky, supposedly. Yeah.
One of the reasons they're stinky is because um truffles.
So the truffle you're eating is the fruiting body, just
(14:57):
like when you eat a mushroom, like a button mushroom.
That's not the fun guy. That's the fruit that grows
off of the fun guy, and it has the spores
and the spores spread everywhere. Um, and and truffles have
have spores as well, but they're sequestered inside of it.
They're not on the outside all hanging out, letting its
junk hang around like some common mushroom. Um. They keep
(15:17):
theirs inside and until marriage, and by marriage, I mean
until an animal roots them up and eats them and
then poops it out somewhere else. UM. So in that sense,
they're they're different from mushrooms as well, but they have
that funky smell because on the outside, when they're in
the dirt, they're actually colonized by all sorts of bacteria.
(15:38):
And yeast and all sorts of weird little things that
helped create the symbiotic relationship that the fun guy uh
has with the tree roots that it grows within. So yeah,
you mentioned trees. Uh, this is really interesting. Like I
never I didn't know much about truffles at all, and
my whole thought was like, why are these things so rare?
Like why can't people just plant truffles like any other
(16:01):
vegetable you might grow? And the reason why is is
you can't. Really there is a process, but it's not
like planting any other plant, I think, And they've been
doing it for thirty five years in the United States
at failure rate. So it's really hard to uh to grow.
(16:22):
And I don't even know if that's the right word. Yeah,
just kind of um yeah, because they're they're like there're
a miracle of nature in a certain way. They're they're
a micro riz a, which means that they're a fun
guy that has a symbiotic relationship with the tree that
they grow at. Right, and usually in Europe usually find
them growing around the roots of um oak trees or
(16:44):
hazel trees. Um in the US they grow at the
base of pecan trees and then oak trees here to
um in Oregon, they grow at the base of Douglas
fir trees. So like certain species of um of truffles
row like at certain the basis of certain trees, because
they have these relationships where the truffle or the micro riza,
(17:08):
the fung the fungus that gives rise to the truffle
that we eat um, it has its own symbiotic relationship
with a bunch of bacteria and yeast. Like I said
that it colonized it and those things take nutrients from
the soil, like nitrates and phosphates and convert them into
nitrogen and phosphorus, which is usable for the tree. So
(17:31):
the trees growing around all these different forms of nitrogen
and fosters, but it can't do anything with it. This
micro riz a, this fung gui converts it into usable
form for the tree and pumps it into the tree's roots,
feeds the tree nutrients and in exchange, the tree says,
here has some carbohydrates, I'll trade you, and the microiza
(17:51):
the fungi says, thank you very much. Yeah. So if
you're gonna try and uh cultivate, I guess that's the
word I'm looking for a truffle, is you inject a
special uh these special fungi spores into this oak or
this hazel nut tree when they're just little seedlings, and
then you plant that tree and then cross your fingers
(18:13):
basically that that tree is going to grow up and
be healthy, because that's the first step. You gotta have
a tree that works, and then that those truffles are
gonna attach to those tree roots underground. And you can't
you know, I imagine it's frustrating in that you can't
look at your harvest and just see it growing on
top of the ground. You just have to have a
lot of patients because I think it takes uh like
(18:36):
four years on average for this to work out to
where you're yielding a truffle two percent of the time.
In the United States, Um, we're trying here. It's just
you know, apparently we have the right climate like on
the West coast where you were talking about some mid
Atlantic states Carolina's, Virginia's, southern Kentucky, northern Alabama, and I
(18:57):
think New Mexico and Arizona are only where it's possible
to get failure rate right. And we should say this
is where they're trying to grow like paragore truffles or
alba truffles, like the really highly prized one. The United
States has its own indigenous truffles. There's something like four
thousand or five thousand species of truffles. It was just right,
(19:19):
their garbage truffles. It's just that there's like three species
that are genuinely prized and that can go for like
a thousand dollars a pound, depending on how bad or
good the harvest was that year. UM. But the United
States has indigenous ones, like there's the Oregon truffle, which
grows to the base of Douglas first. There's Pecan truffles,
which grow basically everywhere from Florida up to Nova Scotia
(19:42):
UM west of the Rocky or east of the Rockies
uh in North America. UM. And there's a couple of
other kinds to from what I saw. James Beard, the
revered UM chef and food guy, UH, he said that
you could substitute um a Oregon truffle for a white
alba truffle and it would do. Yeah, if he signed
(20:05):
off on it. That means it's definitely okay. Well, they're
not cheap either, I mean, I think these American varieties
can go for like a hundred bucks a pound, which
is a lot of money for a pound of something. Um,
but it's not like you know, we'll get to the
crazy prices at these auctions later on. But it's nothing
like European mushroom around European truffles, uh, namely Italian and French.
(20:30):
Like you said, I think Spain is the largest producer
of truffles. Then you have UK, Australia, Chile, South Africa, Sweden,
New Zealand, and then China apparently is uh really involved
in the truffle market and kind of undercutting price wise. Right. Yes, um,
(20:50):
I actually saw that Australia is killing it in the
truffle cultivating game. Yeah, they started in and that was
when they first inoculated their saplings. I also saw another
way to do it, chuck, is even easier. You just
take a bunch of truffle puade up, dip the oak
sapling roots into this puree and just grow those injections.
(21:15):
No injection necessary. I'm sure the oak prefers that way too.
It's just a little baby, um. But they the Australia's
got their first harvest and they are growing paragore truffles,
which paragore truffles are less rare, maybe because of Australia
than the white alba truffles from the Piedmont of Italy
(21:37):
and Croatia. Um and the alba truffles are far more expensive.
But a lot of people prefer the paragore black truffle
from France. Just taste um in general that a lot
of people prefer the black truffle. So that's the one
that the Australians are growing, and they now rival in
the harvest by weight what France every year and they're good, Yes, there,
(22:03):
it's the same thing. It's that truffle and they're supposedly amazing. Well,
I'm sure there are some people that the French would
probably say, no, no, no, the tera war is not
the same, of course, you know, that's exactly what they
would say. In the Australians would say, forget that mate.
How is that Australia truffle season is short? Depending on
(22:25):
the truffle, I mean, they're all short seasons. But you're
gonna get your white and burgundies from September to December
and then winter blacks from December to March. Being kit
these in February and March, and then summer black and
white truffles from May to August. And the reason why
we are mentioning just when truffle season comes around is
(22:47):
because truffles, they do freeze them and they do can them,
but it's not the same. You want to eat a
truffle within four to six days after you take it
out of the ground. Yeah. This this the truffle market
is one of those rare ones where there is a
lot of hype and there's a lot of like Fraser
and Niles Crane types running around buying this stuff up
and caring about it and talking about it to their
(23:07):
friends and all that. But it's not in it's not
a bloated market in that respect, like it is genuinely
scarce in supply, and in the United States it's even
scarcer because, like you said, we've got a failure rate
and growing them here ourselves, and they have such a
short shelf life ten days tops if you're doing everything
(23:30):
right and storing them, um that to get them here
in the US in any kind of quick way from
a place where they're already scarce, where they're growing over
like in say Europe, Uh, you can understand. It actually
makes sense why they're so ridiculously expensive. Yeah, and you know,
I went online today because I was like, can you
even buy truffles online? Not right now? I mean, yeah, yeah,
(23:52):
they're just all out of stock right. Well, No, I
found some that were in a jar. Uh, and it's
it's not like the whole ruffle, it's just a piece
of a truffle. And the price I found for the
black French one was uh on this one website was
a hundred bucks for point eight ounces. Okay, so less
(24:14):
than announced was a hundred bucks. So I saw some
some they were all out of stock, but some like
gourmet sites, um said they can get them and they're
more like, um, like forty eight dollars announce for for
like the small size, medium sized. And I looked, I
was like, is that is that right? And that seemed
kind of in line with it. But you also see
(24:37):
like crazy prices all over the place, like all these
things are, you know, two thousand dollars a pound, or
four thousand dollars a pound, or seven thousand dollars a pound.
Those typically are the white Alba truffles and the black
paragorre truffles are maybe a quarter of that, but it
all depends on how the harvest was that year. And
apparently the harvest has been going down, which is another
(24:57):
reason that so expensive has been going down Italy for
the last century or so. Well. Climate change, that's a
big one apparently. Do you remember when I said that
truffles like to grow in um light airy regions. Even
though they grow underground, they like the above ground to
be a certain way. They're real high maintenance in that
sense and controlling. Um that there's so many people have
(25:20):
moved from the Paraguay region or the Pibon of Italy
into the cities. And since like the eighteen eighties eighteen
nineties when they really started harvesting these for the international market.
Um that these areas have become kind of unkempt and
grown over, and that, in addition to climate change is
affecting the yields like dramatically. I think there was something. Um,
(25:43):
do you have the statistics for the yields between the
nineteenth century and today? Chuck, get ready for your socks
to be knocked off? Are they on right now? They're on?
I just put on so you could knock them off.
So in eighteen ninety a total harvest and I'm not
quite sure maybe this was all commercial truffles, but there
(26:04):
was a total of tons that were harvested in eighteen
nine around the world. That's still pretty scarce if you
think about it. For an annual harvest globally in it
was down to three hundred tons from undred tons. These
days it can be anywhere from twenty five tons to
a hundred and fifty tons a year. That is scarce,
(26:27):
and that's why they cost this kind of money. It's
um and like you said, it's not an artificial market. Uh,
there's there's one that sold at auction, a four point
one six pound white truffle for sixty dollars. Yeah. It
doesn't make sense to me because it's like, well, it's
(26:49):
just a big giant truffle that seems way more than
it would be if you bought that same amount, just
the same weight, but in multiple truffles. It just seemed
really I don't know if somebody's like, I don't want
the world's biggest truffle kind of I think it like
where they bidding using like a giant foam number one hand?
(27:10):
Is that kind of guy? Maybe he paid he paid
a million dollars for that foam, the largest foam rubber
number one. It's right use. One of the things I
was seeing also about climate change affecting truffles is that
so truffles like it we they like it somewhat cool,
and they like it kempt, and like I said, the
(27:31):
regions that they normally grow are getting unkempt, and they're
getting hotter, and they're getting drier, like climate change is
bringing more extreme weather like droughts kind of thing, and
they're also bringing hotter weather weather two regions like the
southwest of France or the Piedmont of Spain or Italy.
I'm sorry, um that where where it didn't used to
(27:51):
be that hot back in like say, when you're getting
like tons annually. So all of these combined on top
of the idea that even under the best of circumstances,
the normal life cycle for a particular micro riz, a
that produces truffles that you you want, like an alba
or paragore, maybe produces truffles for fifteen to thirty years
(28:14):
in the wild, and then after that it says good
night forever. And the French and the Spanish and a
lot of the traditionalists in Europe say, well, then that's
that we just need to move on and find another tree. Well,
they're finding that they're they're not growing under other trees,
and so there's kind of this pushed to start inoculating
trees there in Spain and in the southwest of France,
(28:36):
and Europe has long been pushing back on the idea
of kind of introducing man's hand to this human kind's hand,
I should say, and I think they're starting to kind
of rethink that kind of thing these days. Should we
take another break? Sure? All right, we'll take another break
and we'll talk a little bit more about the flavor
in the trade and what these things are even used for.
(28:59):
Right after this. Alright, so the truffle trade, like we said,
(29:24):
check out that Atlantic article. I'm gonna read it closer
after this because it's just really interesting. Uh, there is
a dark side of course to this trade. Um. They're
people poison each other's dogs. It's awful. Um. The guy
who wrote that article said that he, you know, anecdotally,
talked to different veterinarians, said that they've got two or
three a week dogs being poisoned, and there were a
(29:46):
lot of vets in the area that we're saying the
same thing. So that's horrific on its surface. Um slashing
tires of course, robberies, heists. Uh. Fake truffle while not fake,
but just inflated truffles with the weight like we were
talking about. And you might like hear all this and
(30:06):
just be like why, Like, I know they're rare, but
is this caviare to chuck? Is it this thing that
is so delicious that you must have it? And you know,
I don't know because I've never had it. I do
like the taste of truffle oil, and this this fake truffle.
I think in the seventies, uh, an Italian chemist isolated
(30:29):
one of the flavor producing compounds and recreated it, so
we do have the asynthetic truffley taste. But apparently that's
like they isolated one of these compounds that is not
what a real truffle tastes like. Is what people say
that have had real trouffles. No, it's like so complicated
and complex because again some at least some of the
smells and tastes that are coming off of the truffle
(30:51):
you're eating are coming from the colonizing bacteria and yeasts
that are growing all over it too, and as they're
exposed to air, they start to kind of eye off
and that's where the smell in the odor goes, at
least in part. So, to to just kind of nail
one particular flavor compound and say that's truffle flavor. I
(31:11):
think it's two four die thiah pentane. Yeah. Um, just
to say that that's thank you, Just to say that
that's truffle flavor not only misses all of the nuance
of truffles, apparently I'm speaking from just somebody who's only
been exposed to two for die thiah pentane pretty much. Um.
(31:31):
But then also if you eat enough of that, if
you eat too much truffle popcorn with parmesan shavings at
the nice movie theater in town, um, you are going
to kind of, um desensitize yourself to actual truffles. So
if you actually say I'm gonna get some truffles this
season and try it, uh, it might be lost on
you because you're just used to that kind of the
(31:52):
clunkiest version of the truffle flavor. I'm taking that risk,
I guess. I mean it is good like truffle. Truffle
will flavor at anything is pretty great. I like it it. Um.
It is even hard to describe with just that one compound.
It's hard to kind of you know, it's sort of
a new mommy richness. Uh it is earthy. I like
the flavor, and I'm not going to be, you know,
(32:15):
eating many real truffles in my life if any. So,
I'm not really worried about ruining my my trouble ballot.
Uh So, I'm happy to have that stuff. It's fine,
sure for this guy. It's truffles for the rest of us,
that's right. So if you do come upon some truffles
that you want to um that, if you just say, Okay,
(32:35):
I've got a hundred bucks, I'm gonna spend on truffles,
I'm just gonna do it. Um. Uncle Joe Biden sent
me a check and I'm gonna use a hundred dollars
of it on truffles. I'm gonna healthy, I'm gonna stimulate
the economy and trickle down. Um. So what would you do, Chuck,
What's what's your first move? Well, you want them within
five to six days after they've been harvested. You want
(32:57):
to keep them in a closed container, wrapped in a
paper towel, because you really want to keep them dry.
Wet truffle is no good, despite the fact that they
love wetness to grow. You want to keep that thing
dry if you want to get a little more bang
for your buck and not actually use any of the truffle,
but in part that flavor. You want to douse it
in two four, store it in a in a clothes
(33:21):
like glass tupperware. It's not tupperware if it's glass, but
you know what I mean, glass dish with some cheese,
open cheese, or even eggs that have not you know,
just eggs in their shell, and it will actually somehow
by way of magic. The cheese makes sense, but it
will actually penetrate that egg and flavor that egg somehow
(33:43):
in that nuts that is nuts. That's how potent those
things smell. That they actually make it through eggs shells
inside and then just um inculcates them. But like you said,
you want to keep it simple. I mean, I don't
know if I'd go so far as to say bland,
but they say like shaving truffle on a very simple
risotto dish or just plain parmesan scrambled eggs, plain parmesan
(34:08):
Pasta pizza is a big one, like a you know,
just sort of a cheese pizza, like a really nice one.
Would fire pizza with shaved truffle on top is supposed
to be great. Yeah, that's the thing. You don't have
to do anything with it. You just shave it raw.
You don't have to cook it. It's not like some
hard thing to to use. You just you shave it
onto something and let it shine. Apparently the ancient Romans
(34:31):
used to cook it and eat it with honey, but
they also thought that truffles were created when lightning struck
damp earth, So don't put a lot of stock into
their thoughts, Like, just use it, you know, shaved fresh
truffles onto a very nice dish. Yeah, and you know,
if you want to go to a nice steakhouse and
get truffle butter on your steak, it's not gonna be
(34:53):
real truffle. But who cares? I no, no, I could
see Kevin Rath when using real truffle. Do you think?
How about this? If you are getting that steak and
it's outside of truffle season, it's not real truffle. But
if you know when truffle season is right. So say
you're going between um November and the end of March
(35:13):
to a really nice steakhouse, it's possible that they are
using real truffles that night. Yeah, and it's shaved super
super thin, like when you see it on a on
a food item. It's you know they have these razor
sharp well I guess they're razors. And it always reminds
me of of Good Fellas. I cannot think of of
(35:35):
shaving something with a razor blade and not think of
the scene and Good Fellas in prison where Polly had
his technique where he would shave it so thin it
would it would what would you say? It would liquefy
in the fan. It's so great, man. I love that
part when they were in prison and just like living
high on the hog yep um have Do you ever
(35:56):
eat roasted garlic like on toast? Not on toast, but
a roast gar like plenty? Sure, but yeah, just like
spread it on toast? About that? Just take a whole bulb,
spread it on some toast and thank me later. It's
really good for your guts. You know what I've been
doing lately is the I don't know why I didn't
know it existed. Everything bagel is my favorite bagel, and
(36:19):
they make everything bagel shakers Trader Joe's. Uh no, but
I'm sure that's good too, but just at a regular store.
And uh so I just keep that. I put that
on a lot of stuff, like, uh, just avocado toast
with that that stuff. My buddy Eddie trened me onto
that was shaking that stuff on some avocado toast. Mm hmm.
(36:41):
I know. Yeah. You can put it on just chunks
of avocado and it sounds it tastes very good too.
You can put it on anything. Let's be honest. Do
you can put it on an old shoe? What else
you got? I got nothing else. That's it I want
to eat. I want to eat a real truffle. Uh.
If you eat a real truffle, it'll probably taste so
good it'll make you do a truffle shuffle. All right,
(37:03):
very nice? Uh Well, since I said truffle shuffle, everybody,
I think it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
this Titanic role play. Did you see this one? No?
This is really neat and this is not kicky. No, No,
I mean it didn't even cross my mind. Just the
(37:24):
just on its face, it's hilarious. Okay, hey guys, my
name is Anica and I've been listening since about really
love learning from you guys and listening to your episodes. Uh.
Last year, during beginning of quarantine, many of my family members,
including myself. We're quarantining at my mom's house and is
you and everyone else knows, we hit a point in
our house where everyone got a little loopy. I'm not
(37:44):
really sure how it got started, but we decided to
have a Titanic party on the anniversary of the ship sinking.
Everyone was assigned a real passenger crew member on the
Titanic and had to act out the part for the evening,
including dressing up. Even dogs got parts two. By the way,
send in pictures of them dressed up with their animals
dressed up, and it was pretty great. We had a
(38:05):
meal based off one of the menus recovered from the ship,
and we had to eat in certain areas according to
our class. Wow, this is so great. After dinner, we
read a short memorial and with my friends, uh, my
friend playing Nearer my God to Thee on the cello,
took a and this was all in video. It's fantastic.
Took a five minute plunge in the freezing pool to
(38:27):
commemorate the sinking. Uh. Then to finish out the night,
we round we found out if our passenger crew member
had lived or died, and then watched the movie from
I want to go to this party? Man? Yeah, how
much fun is that? It's pretty cool? Your episode was
more than perfect because we decided to make this an
annual party. Oh, there you go, and they held it
(38:49):
a few weekends ago. Well, Anka, send me the invite.
I don't know where you live, but your family looks
awesome and I want to go to that thing. Yeah, totally.
I can't find that listener mail anywhere. I want to
see these pictures, but right I'll try and find it.
Incent it to you. Her name was Anica. Maybe you
could search that way, Anica. That was an amazing listener
(39:13):
mail and we appreciate it. Um, that does sound like
a lot of fun. We need to go on the
cowboy weekend with the black cowboy who wrote in and
then go to the Titanic role play party, and then
in between we'll like maybe cross the country and marry
a few couples officiate at some weddings. That sounds great.
I just found the email and sent it to you,
(39:33):
and I'm looking at picture. That dog dressed up gets
me every time. It's going to be the summer of
stuff you should not chuck it. I still don't have
a chuck. I don't know what's going on. Oh there
it is. Uh. Do you have anything else to talk
about while I look at these? No, let's just sign off. Okay, Um, well,
since we're signing off, everybody, if you want to get
in touch with us, you can send us an email
(39:55):
like Anka did, Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom,
and send it off to stuff pot cast at I
Heart Radio doc Stuff you Should Know is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and we're the Gastro Boys.
This is stuff you should know. That's probably a podcast
(00:22):
the Gastro Boys. Oh Man, Chuck, it's like we share
our mind sometime. Yeah, that's exactly. Have you ever eaten truffles? Uh? Sure,
I had some popcorn once with truffles and parmesan cheese.
I'm sure it was real truffle. I was trying to
(00:43):
think if I had, and I think, I mean I didn't.
I'm a dummy because I didn't even know if you're like, yeah,
i've had truffle oil. I know what it tastes like.
Spoiler alert, that's not made from real truffles, right, it
would be so expensive you could never do that. So
I thought I had had truffle through that. But then
I think I remember at a staple house here in Atlanta.
(01:06):
I think one of the things on their tasting menu
had truffle shaved truffle on it, but like it wasn't
like an extra hundred dollars to cover your pizza. It
was like a the tiniest little shaving on top of
amuse boush type of thing, right, which is apparently the
way that you're supposed to eat it, like you're supposed
to eat it with a very yeah, very simple dish
(01:28):
where the truffle is this star and just sit there
and cry, maybe take your clothes off so you can
get the full experience, okay and um, and not leave
your house for three days afterward, at least according to
all of the people who have ever been interviewed about truffles,
meaning foodies who talk about this kind of stuff and
(01:49):
use words like celestial and life changing and things like
that when it comes to talking about truffles, So that is,
you know, the truffles are one of the finer things
in life. And another thing that I'd never had either
here at my rip oled age was caviare until a
listener recently who runs the California Caviare company sent some
(02:10):
caviare and I had gone my whole life without trying it,
and I didn't know what to expect. I had no
idea what it would taste like. It was awesome. I
get it now, It's really good. It's like I was.
I was calling it ocean butter. That's kind of what
it reminded me of. It's, you know, briny, but just buttery,
and like it tastes like a rich person's food. And
(02:32):
I totally got it. After I had someone was like,
this is really good and I get it now. Um.
I also want to shout out a couple of people,
since you're talking about the finer things and people who've
sent stuff in. Um uh, all one more time, we
should shout out toad over it down East day Boats
dot Com for the scallops, amazing scallops. Um our buddy
(02:53):
Addison Rex, who's um Jurassic Wines. He likes to send
those once in a while and they're amazing too. Yeah,
he's here. I think I've talked about him before. He
has the company Wine Spies, which is a really kind
of a unique take on a wine club membership. And
I am constantly buying wines and adding them to my
little locker and then once you get twelve bottles in
(03:15):
your locker, you get it shipped all at once. Yeah.
He's just a cool dude all around too. He's awesome.
And then, lastly, do you remember we talked about in
the Groundhog Day episode. Um uh, pig whistle, No, whistle pig. Yes, yes,
pig whistle. I'm so dumb. Um. Whistle pig makes rye.
And they heard us talking about them, or somebody told
(03:37):
them we talked about them, and they sent us like
a whole bunch of rye, like really really good rye.
And I'm here to tell you whistle pig is really
good stuff. I have to say after now having experienced
the firsthand, I haven't been in the office and forever
is there whistle pig on my desk? Yes? Two bottles? Remember,
I don't remember. It was a while ago. Yeah, it's
(03:58):
still it should be still there. If not, we got problems. Yeah, boy,
we need to look at the security team. But we're
talking truffles and we're not talking chocolate truffles. Uh. I
didn't even look this up, but I assume their name
so because they kind of look like truffles, right, That's
what I gathered as well. They're kind of um that
coded in like a cocoa dust like spores a little bit.
(04:22):
And yeah, they're they're bumpy and just kind of ugly.
They do kind of resemble black truffles in a lot
of ways. Let me ask you this, Did you read
the Atlantic article? Uh? No, I did not. Actually, well
it's I skimmed it and I'm gonna read it in
full later. There's this writer, his name is Ryan Jacobs,
who wrote an article in the Atlantic. He was he
(04:43):
was basically on a mushroom story about Porcini mushroom foragers
in Germany and people that weren't you know, sort of
an not an illegal trade, but they were foraging where
they shouldn't be. One of them ran over a forestry
guard with a car and they got away with it.
He called his friend in the UK. It was like, hey,
is there a story here? And he was like, not really,
(05:06):
he said, but if you really want a crime story,
look at truffles. So this guy looked at the truffle
underground truffle market and wrote this article that turned into
a book called The Truffle Underground Colon, a tale of mystery, mayhem,
and manipulation and the shadowy market of the world's most
expensive fungus. And I kind of quickly scanned it and
(05:28):
it is um like anything else in the world, like
fine art or rare wines, anything that's sort of scarce
and rare. There will be crime surrounding it, whether it's
poisoning truffle dogs or blowing up someone's car, or heisting
and robbing people of their truffle take, or selling fraudulent
(05:48):
fake stuff. Selling fraudulent fake stuff I saw. One thing
they would do is try and cram dirt into crevices
to make them heavier. Um, trying to sell diseased like
wormed out truffles and stuff like that. So, just like
anything else rare and expensive, there is a dark side
to it, and truffles are no exception, no note, um,
(06:10):
and truffles are really amazing little creatures. I had no idea. Um.
I mean, I figured that they were, like I think
just about everybody else who never really looked into truffles
that much, that they were very much like mushrooms. Um,
and they are related to mushrooms only in that they
are both part of the same kingdom. Fun guy. So
(06:33):
to say like, um, truffles are related to mushrooms is
basically the same thing as saying that human beings are
related to starfish, because we're both part of the kingdom.
That's how distantly related mushrooms and truffles are. They they
they diverged at the division level, which is right under kingdom.
So they're they're only related in the most basic way
(06:56):
that something can be related, not in any kind of
complex or even loose way whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, one
of the biggest differences between mushrooms and truffles are mushrooms
grow above ground and truffles, as most people know, grow underground,
which is why you need to hunt. And it's called hunting.
It's not technically it's not called foraging or collecting. It's
(07:18):
called truffle hunting that you used to do with pigs
because pigs, you know, don't need to be trained. They
know where to go to get those truffles. Now they
use dogs for a few reasons. One is because dogs
don't want to eat the truffles and pigs do. So
a pig finds that truffle and you gotta then you
gotta get it away from that big like really quick.
(07:40):
Dogs I want to eat those things. Dog just want
to make master happy. And so you can kind of
train a dog to do this and turn it into
a game. And then you know, the other reason listed
here was like you truffle hunt three months out of
the year and then you got a pig for the
other nine months, which I say is great, but other
people are like, these are hundreds of pounds and dogs
are better pets and easier to care right exactly. Um,
(08:02):
the reason people use pigs in the first place, which
seems kind of weird on its face, but truffles produce
a um, a kind of volatile organic compound called andrew
steen all or in drosten all um, and that is
actually the same thing as a sex hormone scent that
(08:22):
male pigs put out. So if you go truffle hunting,
you want to take a female pig because they're actually
rooting out a sex scent. Um. I guess they think that, uh,
a male pig and his junk are buried just you know,
between two and fifteen inches underground, and so they start
rooting through the ground and end up finding truffles and then,
like you said, try to eat it, so you have
to wrestle it away from them. Sweet pigs, they are sweet, um.
(08:46):
But yeah, so dogs make a lot more sense. So
it's pretty rare from what I understand, to see somebody
hunting with a pig these days, unless they're just like
some pipster purist who also like butcher's the pig after
the truffle hunt to you know, um, just out of
respect man. And then um, there's another thing you can do.
If you're like, well, I can't afford a pig, or
I can't afford a dog because I've never found a
(09:08):
truffle and sold one. I'm saving up um. You can
get yourself just a little a little um. There's a
kind of truffle spade called a sapin you can dig
them up with. And there's actually other natural signs that
you can look for um when you look for truffle um.
One is the su Wilia fly, which likes to plant
(09:29):
um itself. It's burrows just above truffles, so you see
this specific kind of fly. If you learn to identify
that fly, you can remind yep. And then also there's
something called the brew ley like cranbrew lay, but it
means burned in French. And it's a dark patch of
earth um around the base of the tree where the
(09:50):
truffles growing. And we'll talk about why they grow there
in a second, but this dark patch of earth is
actually basically antibiotics that um the truffle itself or the
fun guy that the truffle grows from puts out two
poison the ground above it, because it doesn't do very
well if there's a lot of vegetation growing around it.
(10:12):
It does really well growing around among the roots of trees.
It doesn't like a very clear or it doesn't like
a very thick under underbrush. It likes it to be
nice and clear and airy. So it kills off any
potential seeds or or um weeds or grass or anything
that might be growing right above it. And then amazing,
So the truffle says, I shall scorch the earth above me. Exactly, yes, exactly,
(10:37):
that's amazing. So you see those signs, you probably have
a truffle down there. So you don't need a dog
or a pig. You just need to be good at that. Yeah,
true hipster, the kind of the pointy chin beard. They
just look for truffles by hunting for brulet. All right, well,
let's take a break. That's a good setup. Our hipster
(10:58):
is still a thing. I don't know. I haven't been
out of my house in a year or so, so
I can't tell if they're still around or not. Maybe
they all went away during the pandemic. They were they
rethought their lives, and they're gonna come out as sincere,
non ironic humans. All right, which is what we're gonna do.
We're gonna take a break and come back as that
right after this. All right. So, truffles are these underground
(11:43):
things that you eat. I don't even think we said that.
We did. We talked about eating truffles at the beginning.
I guess now I'm all paranoid that we're not explaining
things soon enough. Why because the foodies are listening. Well,
because people are like, you've waited fifteen minutes before you
even said what X was. I think those people are joking.
They're making fun of our paranoia. Yeah, that's how I've
(12:04):
been taking it and thirteen years and it really doesn't matter, right, No,
not at all, as long as people are still listening,
we're doing okay. Truffles are these things that are very rare,
They're hard to find, they're hard to get, they're very expensive,
which we'll get to. Uh. And there are many different kinds.
There are thousands of varieties of truffle. But if you're
talking on a macro level, sort of the basics of
(12:24):
truffles that you would hunt and eat you've got black
truffles and white truffles and burgundy truffles and then some
other you know, lesser known truffles. But you really want
to talk about black and white truffles as the two
leading truffles that you're gonna find on a plate if
you have a lot of money, right, and if if
they're um, you're actually specifically talking about the black French
(12:47):
truffle um, the tuber milani sporum um from Paragore, France,
southwest France. Um. And then that's so that's like the
prized black truffle. The prized white truffle, which is actually
even rarer and even more expensive than the Paregord truffle
um is the tuber magnantum pico, the albo truffle from
(13:10):
the Piedmont area of Italy. And then, like you said,
the burgundy one, right, the black ones. If you if
you look at it, it's sort of like a lumpy um.
It sort of looks like has the texture of like
a leechy, but it's not colorful. It's black and it's
sort of lumpy, and it looks like a clump of dirt.
Maybe some people say it looks like poop um. If
(13:32):
you if you slice it open, it looks like it's
very has that dense marbl ing like a really nice
cut of beef might have, Yeah, like wye goo beef. Yeah,
which is just amazing to see. If have you ever
seen that stuff? For all the beef, for the truffle
the beef. I've seen both, yes, okay, yeah, so why
do you even ask? I don't know, but they do
(13:54):
look alike that that really really dense veiny marbling. The
white truffle, on the other hand, it looks sort of
like a little you know, you know, the little round
white potatoes. It looks like those, not like a baker potato,
but it looks sort of like a white potato. Yeah,
like Yukon gold, but white. Sure. I like the Yukon gold.
(14:15):
Those are good. They're both pungent in the in The
odor apparently, is really hard to describe. I've seen so
many different creative, kind of fun and goofy ways to
describe the aroma of a truffle um. I've heard a
lot of people say they're stinky. Some people say like
locker room like funky earthy, Yeah, funky and earthy. It's
(14:36):
almost as much fun as describing what a theorem in
sounds like exactly. I think burgundy truffles are a little
more aromatic. But you know there, it's a very unique smell,
and I think they're they're kind of stinky, supposedly. Yeah.
One of the reasons they're stinky is because um truffles.
So the truffle you're eating is the fruiting body, just
(14:57):
like when you eat a mushroom, like a button mushroom.
That's not the fun guy. That's the fruit that grows
off of the fun guy, and it has the spores
and the spores spread everywhere. Um, and and truffles have
have spores as well, but they're sequestered inside of it.
They're not on the outside all hanging out, letting its
junk hang around like some common mushroom. Um. They keep
(15:17):
theirs inside and until marriage, and by marriage, I mean
until an animal roots them up and eats them and
then poops it out somewhere else. UM. So in that sense,
they're they're different from mushrooms as well, but they have
that funky smell because on the outside, when they're in
the dirt, they're actually colonized by all sorts of bacteria.
(15:38):
And yeast and all sorts of weird little things that
helped create the symbiotic relationship that the fun guy uh
has with the tree roots that it grows within. So yeah,
you mentioned trees. Uh, this is really interesting. Like I
never I didn't know much about truffles at all, and
my whole thought was like, why are these things so rare?
Like why can't people just plant truffles like any other
(16:01):
vegetable you might grow? And the reason why is is
you can't. Really there is a process, but it's not
like planting any other plant, I think, And they've been
doing it for thirty five years in the United States
at failure rate. So it's really hard to uh to grow.
(16:22):
And I don't even know if that's the right word. Yeah,
just kind of um yeah, because they're they're like there're
a miracle of nature in a certain way. They're they're
a micro riz a, which means that they're a fun
guy that has a symbiotic relationship with the tree that
they grow at. Right, and usually in Europe usually find
them growing around the roots of um oak trees or
(16:44):
hazel trees. Um in the US they grow at the
base of pecan trees and then oak trees here to
um in Oregon, they grow at the base of Douglas
fir trees. So like certain species of um of truffles
row like at certain the basis of certain trees, because
they have these relationships where the truffle or the micro riza,
(17:08):
the fung the fungus that gives rise to the truffle
that we eat um, it has its own symbiotic relationship
with a bunch of bacteria and yeast. Like I said
that it colonized it and those things take nutrients from
the soil, like nitrates and phosphates and convert them into
nitrogen and phosphorus, which is usable for the tree. So
(17:31):
the trees growing around all these different forms of nitrogen
and fosters, but it can't do anything with it. This
micro riz a, this fung gui converts it into usable
form for the tree and pumps it into the tree's roots,
feeds the tree nutrients and in exchange, the tree says,
here has some carbohydrates, I'll trade you, and the microiza
(17:51):
the fungi says, thank you very much. Yeah. So if
you're gonna try and uh cultivate, I guess that's the
word I'm looking for a truffle, is you inject a
special uh these special fungi spores into this oak or
this hazel nut tree when they're just little seedlings, and
then you plant that tree and then cross your fingers
(18:13):
basically that that tree is going to grow up and
be healthy, because that's the first step. You gotta have
a tree that works, and then that those truffles are
gonna attach to those tree roots underground. And you can't
you know, I imagine it's frustrating in that you can't
look at your harvest and just see it growing on
top of the ground. You just have to have a
lot of patients because I think it takes uh like
(18:36):
four years on average for this to work out to
where you're yielding a truffle two percent of the time.
In the United States, Um, we're trying here. It's just
you know, apparently we have the right climate like on
the West coast where you were talking about some mid
Atlantic states Carolina's, Virginia's, southern Kentucky, northern Alabama, and I
(18:57):
think New Mexico and Arizona are only where it's possible
to get failure rate right. And we should say this
is where they're trying to grow like paragore truffles or
alba truffles, like the really highly prized one. The United
States has its own indigenous truffles. There's something like four
thousand or five thousand species of truffles. It was just right,
(19:19):
their garbage truffles. It's just that there's like three species
that are genuinely prized and that can go for like
a thousand dollars a pound, depending on how bad or
good the harvest was that year. UM. But the United
States has indigenous ones, like there's the Oregon truffle, which
grows to the base of Douglas first. There's Pecan truffles,
which grow basically everywhere from Florida up to Nova Scotia
(19:42):
UM west of the Rocky or east of the Rockies
uh in North America. UM. And there's a couple of
other kinds to from what I saw. James Beard, the
revered UM chef and food guy, UH, he said that
you could substitute um a Oregon truffle for a white
alba truffle and it would do. Yeah, if he signed
(20:05):
off on it. That means it's definitely okay. Well, they're
not cheap either, I mean, I think these American varieties
can go for like a hundred bucks a pound, which
is a lot of money for a pound of something. Um,
but it's not like you know, we'll get to the
crazy prices at these auctions later on. But it's nothing
like European mushroom around European truffles, uh, namely Italian and French.
(20:30):
Like you said, I think Spain is the largest producer
of truffles. Then you have UK, Australia, Chile, South Africa, Sweden,
New Zealand, and then China apparently is uh really involved
in the truffle market and kind of undercutting price wise. Right. Yes, um,
(20:50):
I actually saw that Australia is killing it in the
truffle cultivating game. Yeah, they started in and that was
when they first inoculated their saplings. I also saw another
way to do it, chuck, is even easier. You just
take a bunch of truffle puade up, dip the oak
sapling roots into this puree and just grow those injections.
(21:15):
No injection necessary. I'm sure the oak prefers that way too.
It's just a little baby, um. But they the Australia's
got their first harvest and they are growing paragore truffles,
which paragore truffles are less rare, maybe because of Australia
than the white alba truffles from the Piedmont of Italy
(21:37):
and Croatia. Um and the alba truffles are far more expensive.
But a lot of people prefer the paragore black truffle
from France. Just taste um in general that a lot
of people prefer the black truffle. So that's the one
that the Australians are growing, and they now rival in
the harvest by weight what France every year and they're good, Yes, there,
(22:03):
it's the same thing. It's that truffle and they're supposedly amazing. Well,
I'm sure there are some people that the French would
probably say, no, no, no, the tera war is not
the same, of course, you know, that's exactly what they
would say. In the Australians would say, forget that mate.
How is that Australia truffle season is short? Depending on
(22:25):
the truffle, I mean, they're all short seasons. But you're
gonna get your white and burgundies from September to December
and then winter blacks from December to March. Being kit
these in February and March, and then summer black and
white truffles from May to August. And the reason why
we are mentioning just when truffle season comes around is
(22:47):
because truffles, they do freeze them and they do can them,
but it's not the same. You want to eat a
truffle within four to six days after you take it
out of the ground. Yeah. This this the truffle market
is one of those rare ones where there is a
lot of hype and there's a lot of like Fraser
and Niles Crane types running around buying this stuff up
and caring about it and talking about it to their
(23:07):
friends and all that. But it's not in it's not
a bloated market in that respect, like it is genuinely
scarce in supply, and in the United States it's even
scarcer because, like you said, we've got a failure rate
and growing them here ourselves, and they have such a
short shelf life ten days tops if you're doing everything
(23:30):
right and storing them, um that to get them here
in the US in any kind of quick way from
a place where they're already scarce, where they're growing over
like in say Europe, Uh, you can understand. It actually
makes sense why they're so ridiculously expensive. Yeah, and you know,
I went online today because I was like, can you
even buy truffles online? Not right now? I mean, yeah, yeah,
(23:52):
they're just all out of stock right. Well, No, I
found some that were in a jar. Uh, and it's
it's not like the whole ruffle, it's just a piece
of a truffle. And the price I found for the
black French one was uh on this one website was
a hundred bucks for point eight ounces. Okay, so less
(24:14):
than announced was a hundred bucks. So I saw some
some they were all out of stock, but some like
gourmet sites, um said they can get them and they're
more like, um, like forty eight dollars announce for for
like the small size, medium sized. And I looked, I
was like, is that is that right? And that seemed
kind of in line with it. But you also see
(24:37):
like crazy prices all over the place, like all these
things are, you know, two thousand dollars a pound, or
four thousand dollars a pound, or seven thousand dollars a pound.
Those typically are the white Alba truffles and the black
paragorre truffles are maybe a quarter of that, but it
all depends on how the harvest was that year. And
apparently the harvest has been going down, which is another
(24:57):
reason that so expensive has been going down Italy for
the last century or so. Well. Climate change, that's a
big one apparently. Do you remember when I said that
truffles like to grow in um light airy regions. Even
though they grow underground, they like the above ground to
be a certain way. They're real high maintenance in that
sense and controlling. Um that there's so many people have
(25:20):
moved from the Paraguay region or the Pibon of Italy
into the cities. And since like the eighteen eighties eighteen
nineties when they really started harvesting these for the international market.
Um that these areas have become kind of unkempt and
grown over, and that, in addition to climate change is
affecting the yields like dramatically. I think there was something. Um,
(25:43):
do you have the statistics for the yields between the
nineteenth century and today? Chuck, get ready for your socks
to be knocked off? Are they on right now? They're on?
I just put on so you could knock them off.
So in eighteen ninety a total harvest and I'm not
quite sure maybe this was all commercial truffles, but there
(26:04):
was a total of tons that were harvested in eighteen
nine around the world. That's still pretty scarce if you
think about it. For an annual harvest globally in it
was down to three hundred tons from undred tons. These
days it can be anywhere from twenty five tons to
a hundred and fifty tons a year. That is scarce,
(26:27):
and that's why they cost this kind of money. It's
um and like you said, it's not an artificial market. Uh,
there's there's one that sold at auction, a four point
one six pound white truffle for sixty dollars. Yeah. It
doesn't make sense to me because it's like, well, it's
(26:49):
just a big giant truffle that seems way more than
it would be if you bought that same amount, just
the same weight, but in multiple truffles. It just seemed
really I don't know if somebody's like, I don't want
the world's biggest truffle kind of I think it like
where they bidding using like a giant foam number one hand?
(27:10):
Is that kind of guy? Maybe he paid he paid
a million dollars for that foam, the largest foam rubber
number one. It's right use. One of the things I
was seeing also about climate change affecting truffles is that
so truffles like it we they like it somewhat cool,
and they like it kempt, and like I said, the
(27:31):
regions that they normally grow are getting unkempt, and they're
getting hotter, and they're getting drier, like climate change is
bringing more extreme weather like droughts kind of thing, and
they're also bringing hotter weather weather two regions like the
southwest of France or the Piedmont of Spain or Italy.
I'm sorry, um that where where it didn't used to
(27:51):
be that hot back in like say, when you're getting
like tons annually. So all of these combined on top
of the idea that even under the best of circumstances,
the normal life cycle for a particular micro riz, a
that produces truffles that you you want, like an alba
or paragore, maybe produces truffles for fifteen to thirty years
(28:14):
in the wild, and then after that it says good
night forever. And the French and the Spanish and a
lot of the traditionalists in Europe say, well, then that's
that we just need to move on and find another tree. Well,
they're finding that they're they're not growing under other trees,
and so there's kind of this pushed to start inoculating
trees there in Spain and in the southwest of France,
(28:36):
and Europe has long been pushing back on the idea
of kind of introducing man's hand to this human kind's hand,
I should say, and I think they're starting to kind
of rethink that kind of thing these days. Should we
take another break? Sure? All right, we'll take another break
and we'll talk a little bit more about the flavor
in the trade and what these things are even used for.
(28:59):
Right after this. Alright, so the truffle trade, like we said,
(29:24):
check out that Atlantic article. I'm gonna read it closer
after this because it's just really interesting. Uh, there is
a dark side of course to this trade. Um. They're
people poison each other's dogs. It's awful. Um. The guy
who wrote that article said that he, you know, anecdotally,
talked to different veterinarians, said that they've got two or
three a week dogs being poisoned, and there were a
(29:46):
lot of vets in the area that we're saying the
same thing. So that's horrific on its surface. Um slashing
tires of course, robberies, heists. Uh. Fake truffle while not fake,
but just inflated truffles with the weight like we were
talking about. And you might like hear all this and
(30:06):
just be like why, Like, I know they're rare, but
is this caviare to chuck? Is it this thing that
is so delicious that you must have it? And you know,
I don't know because I've never had it. I do
like the taste of truffle oil, and this this fake truffle.
I think in the seventies, uh, an Italian chemist isolated
(30:29):
one of the flavor producing compounds and recreated it, so
we do have the asynthetic truffley taste. But apparently that's
like they isolated one of these compounds that is not
what a real truffle tastes like. Is what people say
that have had real trouffles. No, it's like so complicated
and complex because again some at least some of the
smells and tastes that are coming off of the truffle
(30:51):
you're eating are coming from the colonizing bacteria and yeasts
that are growing all over it too, and as they're
exposed to air, they start to kind of eye off
and that's where the smell in the odor goes, at
least in part. So, to to just kind of nail
one particular flavor compound and say that's truffle flavor. I
(31:11):
think it's two four die thiah pentane. Yeah. Um, just
to say that that's thank you, Just to say that
that's truffle flavor not only misses all of the nuance
of truffles, apparently I'm speaking from just somebody who's only
been exposed to two for die thiah pentane pretty much. Um.
(31:31):
But then also if you eat enough of that, if
you eat too much truffle popcorn with parmesan shavings at
the nice movie theater in town, um, you are going
to kind of, um desensitize yourself to actual truffles. So
if you actually say I'm gonna get some truffles this
season and try it, uh, it might be lost on
you because you're just used to that kind of the
(31:52):
clunkiest version of the truffle flavor. I'm taking that risk,
I guess. I mean it is good like truffle. Truffle
will flavor at anything is pretty great. I like it it. Um.
It is even hard to describe with just that one compound.
It's hard to kind of you know, it's sort of
a new mommy richness. Uh it is earthy. I like
the flavor, and I'm not going to be, you know,
(32:15):
eating many real truffles in my life if any. So,
I'm not really worried about ruining my my trouble ballot.
Uh So, I'm happy to have that stuff. It's fine,
sure for this guy. It's truffles for the rest of us,
that's right. So if you do come upon some truffles
that you want to um that, if you just say, Okay,
(32:35):
I've got a hundred bucks, I'm gonna spend on truffles,
I'm just gonna do it. Um. Uncle Joe Biden sent
me a check and I'm gonna use a hundred dollars
of it on truffles. I'm gonna healthy, I'm gonna stimulate
the economy and trickle down. Um. So what would you do, Chuck,
What's what's your first move? Well, you want them within
five to six days after they've been harvested. You want
(32:57):
to keep them in a closed container, wrapped in a
paper towel, because you really want to keep them dry.
Wet truffle is no good, despite the fact that they
love wetness to grow. You want to keep that thing
dry if you want to get a little more bang
for your buck and not actually use any of the truffle,
but in part that flavor. You want to douse it
in two four, store it in a in a clothes
(33:21):
like glass tupperware. It's not tupperware if it's glass, but
you know what I mean, glass dish with some cheese,
open cheese, or even eggs that have not you know,
just eggs in their shell, and it will actually somehow
by way of magic. The cheese makes sense, but it
will actually penetrate that egg and flavor that egg somehow
(33:43):
in that nuts that is nuts. That's how potent those
things smell. That they actually make it through eggs shells
inside and then just um inculcates them. But like you said,
you want to keep it simple. I mean, I don't
know if I'd go so far as to say bland,
but they say like shaving truffle on a very simple
risotto dish or just plain parmesan scrambled eggs, plain parmesan
(34:08):
Pasta pizza is a big one, like a you know,
just sort of a cheese pizza, like a really nice one.
Would fire pizza with shaved truffle on top is supposed
to be great. Yeah, that's the thing. You don't have
to do anything with it. You just shave it raw.
You don't have to cook it. It's not like some
hard thing to to use. You just you shave it
onto something and let it shine. Apparently the ancient Romans
(34:31):
used to cook it and eat it with honey, but
they also thought that truffles were created when lightning struck
damp earth, So don't put a lot of stock into
their thoughts, Like, just use it, you know, shaved fresh
truffles onto a very nice dish. Yeah, and you know,
if you want to go to a nice steakhouse and
get truffle butter on your steak, it's not gonna be
(34:53):
real truffle. But who cares? I no, no, I could
see Kevin Rath when using real truffle. Do you think?
How about this? If you are getting that steak and
it's outside of truffle season, it's not real truffle. But
if you know when truffle season is right. So say
you're going between um November and the end of March
(35:13):
to a really nice steakhouse, it's possible that they are
using real truffles that night. Yeah, and it's shaved super
super thin, like when you see it on a on
a food item. It's you know they have these razor
sharp well I guess they're razors. And it always reminds
me of of Good Fellas. I cannot think of of
(35:35):
shaving something with a razor blade and not think of
the scene and Good Fellas in prison where Polly had
his technique where he would shave it so thin it
would it would what would you say? It would liquefy
in the fan. It's so great, man. I love that
part when they were in prison and just like living
high on the hog yep um have Do you ever
(35:56):
eat roasted garlic like on toast? Not on toast, but
a roast gar like plenty? Sure, but yeah, just like
spread it on toast? About that? Just take a whole bulb,
spread it on some toast and thank me later. It's
really good for your guts. You know what I've been
doing lately is the I don't know why I didn't
know it existed. Everything bagel is my favorite bagel, and
(36:19):
they make everything bagel shakers Trader Joe's. Uh no, but
I'm sure that's good too, but just at a regular store.
And uh so I just keep that. I put that
on a lot of stuff, like, uh, just avocado toast
with that that stuff. My buddy Eddie trened me onto
that was shaking that stuff on some avocado toast. Mm hmm.
(36:41):
I know. Yeah. You can put it on just chunks
of avocado and it sounds it tastes very good too.
You can put it on anything. Let's be honest. Do
you can put it on an old shoe? What else
you got? I got nothing else. That's it I want
to eat. I want to eat a real truffle. Uh.
If you eat a real truffle, it'll probably taste so
good it'll make you do a truffle shuffle. All right,
(37:03):
very nice? Uh Well, since I said truffle shuffle, everybody,
I think it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
this Titanic role play. Did you see this one? No?
This is really neat and this is not kicky. No, No,
I mean it didn't even cross my mind. Just the
(37:24):
just on its face, it's hilarious. Okay, hey guys, my
name is Anica and I've been listening since about really
love learning from you guys and listening to your episodes. Uh.
Last year, during beginning of quarantine, many of my family members,
including myself. We're quarantining at my mom's house and is
you and everyone else knows, we hit a point in
our house where everyone got a little loopy. I'm not
(37:44):
really sure how it got started, but we decided to
have a Titanic party on the anniversary of the ship sinking.
Everyone was assigned a real passenger crew member on the
Titanic and had to act out the part for the evening,
including dressing up. Even dogs got parts two. By the way,
send in pictures of them dressed up with their animals
dressed up, and it was pretty great. We had a
(38:05):
meal based off one of the menus recovered from the ship,
and we had to eat in certain areas according to
our class. Wow, this is so great. After dinner, we
read a short memorial and with my friends, uh, my
friend playing Nearer my God to Thee on the cello,
took a and this was all in video. It's fantastic.
Took a five minute plunge in the freezing pool to
(38:27):
commemorate the sinking. Uh. Then to finish out the night,
we round we found out if our passenger crew member
had lived or died, and then watched the movie from
I want to go to this party? Man? Yeah, how
much fun is that? It's pretty cool? Your episode was
more than perfect because we decided to make this an
annual party. Oh, there you go, and they held it
(38:49):
a few weekends ago. Well, Anka, send me the invite.
I don't know where you live, but your family looks
awesome and I want to go to that thing. Yeah, totally.
I can't find that listener mail anywhere. I want to
see these pictures, but right I'll try and find it.
Incent it to you. Her name was Anica. Maybe you
could search that way, Anica. That was an amazing listener
(39:13):
mail and we appreciate it. Um, that does sound like
a lot of fun. We need to go on the
cowboy weekend with the black cowboy who wrote in and
then go to the Titanic role play party, and then
in between we'll like maybe cross the country and marry
a few couples officiate at some weddings. That sounds great.
I just found the email and sent it to you,
(39:33):
and I'm looking at picture. That dog dressed up gets
me every time. It's going to be the summer of
stuff you should not chuck it. I still don't have
a chuck. I don't know what's going on. Oh there
it is. Uh. Do you have anything else to talk
about while I look at these? No, let's just sign off. Okay, Um, well,
since we're signing off, everybody, if you want to get
in touch with us, you can send us an email
(39:55):
like Anka did, Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom,
and send it off to stuff pot cast at I
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