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Truffles: Underground Treasures · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and we're the Gastro Boys.
0:18
Speaker 1: This is stuff you should know. That's probably a podcast
0:22
Speaker 1: the Gastro Boys. Oh Man, Chuck, it's like we share
0:26
Speaker 1: our mind sometime. Yeah, that's exactly. Have you ever eaten truffles? Uh? Sure,
0:36
Speaker 1: I had some popcorn once with truffles and parmesan cheese.
0:40
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was real truffle. I was trying to
0:43
Speaker 1: think if I had, and I think, I mean I didn't.
0:48
Speaker 1: I'm a dummy because I didn't even know if you're like, yeah,
0:49
Speaker 1: i've had truffle oil. I know what it tastes like.
0:52
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, that's not made from real truffles, right, it
0:56
Speaker 1: would be so expensive you could never do that. So
0:58
Speaker 1: I thought I had had truffle through that. But then
1:01
Speaker 1: I think I remember at a staple house here in Atlanta.
1:06
Speaker 1: I think one of the things on their tasting menu
1:09
Speaker 1: had truffle shaved truffle on it, but like it wasn't
1:13
Speaker 1: like an extra hundred dollars to cover your pizza. It
1:16
Speaker 1: was like a the tiniest little shaving on top of
1:19
Speaker 1: amuse boush type of thing, right, which is apparently the
1:22
Speaker 1: way that you're supposed to eat it, like you're supposed
1:25
Speaker 1: to eat it with a very yeah, very simple dish
1:28
Speaker 1: where the truffle is this star and just sit there
1:31
Speaker 1: and cry, maybe take your clothes off so you can
1:34
Speaker 1: get the full experience, okay and um, and not leave
1:38
Speaker 1: your house for three days afterward, at least according to
1:41
Speaker 1: all of the people who have ever been interviewed about truffles,
1:46
Speaker 1: meaning foodies who talk about this kind of stuff and
1:49
Speaker 1: use words like celestial and life changing and things like
1:53
Speaker 1: that when it comes to talking about truffles, So that is,
1:56
Speaker 1: you know, the truffles are one of the finer things
1:58
Speaker 1: in life. And another thing that I'd never had either
2:00
Speaker 1: here at my rip oled age was caviare until a
2:05
Speaker 1: listener recently who runs the California Caviare company sent some
2:10
Speaker 1: caviare and I had gone my whole life without trying it,
2:14
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what to expect. I had no
2:16
Speaker 1: idea what it would taste like. It was awesome. I
2:20
Speaker 1: get it now, It's really good. It's like I was.
2:23
Speaker 1: I was calling it ocean butter. That's kind of what
2:25
Speaker 1: it reminded me of. It's, you know, briny, but just buttery,
2:28
Speaker 1: and like it tastes like a rich person's food. And
2:32
Speaker 1: I totally got it. After I had someone was like,
2:34
Speaker 1: this is really good and I get it now. Um.
2:37
Speaker 1: I also want to shout out a couple of people,
2:39
Speaker 1: since you're talking about the finer things and people who've
2:41
Speaker 1: sent stuff in. Um uh, all one more time, we
2:45
Speaker 1: should shout out toad over it down East day Boats
2:48
Speaker 1: dot Com for the scallops, amazing scallops. Um our buddy
2:53
Speaker 1: Addison Rex, who's um Jurassic Wines. He likes to send
2:57
Speaker 1: those once in a while and they're amazing too. Yeah,
2:59
Speaker 1: he's here. I think I've talked about him before. He
3:01
Speaker 1: has the company Wine Spies, which is a really kind
3:05
Speaker 1: of a unique take on a wine club membership. And
3:09
Speaker 1: I am constantly buying wines and adding them to my
3:13
Speaker 1: little locker and then once you get twelve bottles in
3:15
Speaker 1: your locker, you get it shipped all at once. Yeah.
3:17
Speaker 1: He's just a cool dude all around too. He's awesome.
3:20
Speaker 1: And then, lastly, do you remember we talked about in
3:22
Speaker 1: the Groundhog Day episode. Um uh, pig whistle, No, whistle pig. Yes, yes,
3:29
Speaker 1: pig whistle. I'm so dumb. Um. Whistle pig makes rye.
3:34
Speaker 1: And they heard us talking about them, or somebody told
3:37
Speaker 1: them we talked about them, and they sent us like
3:39
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of rye, like really really good rye.
3:43
Speaker 1: And I'm here to tell you whistle pig is really
3:46
Speaker 1: good stuff. I have to say after now having experienced
3:49
Speaker 1: the firsthand, I haven't been in the office and forever
3:51
Speaker 1: is there whistle pig on my desk? Yes? Two bottles? Remember,
3:56
Speaker 1: I don't remember. It was a while ago. Yeah, it's
3:58
Speaker 1: still it should be still there. If not, we got problems. Yeah, boy,
4:01
Speaker 1: we need to look at the security team. But we're
4:04
Speaker 1: talking truffles and we're not talking chocolate truffles. Uh. I
4:09
Speaker 1: didn't even look this up, but I assume their name
4:12
Speaker 1: so because they kind of look like truffles, right, That's
4:15
Speaker 1: what I gathered as well. They're kind of um that
4:18
Speaker 1: coded in like a cocoa dust like spores a little bit.
4:22
Speaker 1: And yeah, they're they're bumpy and just kind of ugly.
4:24
Speaker 1: They do kind of resemble black truffles in a lot
4:26
Speaker 1: of ways. Let me ask you this, Did you read
4:28
Speaker 1: the Atlantic article? Uh? No, I did not. Actually, well
4:33
Speaker 1: it's I skimmed it and I'm gonna read it in
4:36
Speaker 1: full later. There's this writer, his name is Ryan Jacobs,
4:40
Speaker 1: who wrote an article in the Atlantic. He was he
4:43
Speaker 1: was basically on a mushroom story about Porcini mushroom foragers
4:48
Speaker 1: in Germany and people that weren't you know, sort of
4:52
Speaker 1: an not an illegal trade, but they were foraging where
4:55
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be. One of them ran over a forestry
4:58
Speaker 1: guard with a car and they got away with it.
5:01
Speaker 1: He called his friend in the UK. It was like, hey,
5:03
Speaker 1: is there a story here? And he was like, not really,
5:06
Speaker 1: he said, but if you really want a crime story,
5:09
Speaker 1: look at truffles. So this guy looked at the truffle
5:13
Speaker 1: underground truffle market and wrote this article that turned into
5:16
Speaker 1: a book called The Truffle Underground Colon, a tale of mystery, mayhem,
5:20
Speaker 1: and manipulation and the shadowy market of the world's most
5:24
Speaker 1: expensive fungus. And I kind of quickly scanned it and
5:28
Speaker 1: it is um like anything else in the world, like
5:30
Speaker 1: fine art or rare wines, anything that's sort of scarce
5:34
Speaker 1: and rare. There will be crime surrounding it, whether it's
5:39
Speaker 1: poisoning truffle dogs or blowing up someone's car, or heisting
5:43
Speaker 1: and robbing people of their truffle take, or selling fraudulent
5:48
Speaker 1: fake stuff. Selling fraudulent fake stuff I saw. One thing
5:51
Speaker 1: they would do is try and cram dirt into crevices
5:55
Speaker 1: to make them heavier. Um, trying to sell diseased like
6:00
Speaker 1: wormed out truffles and stuff like that. So, just like
6:03
Speaker 1: anything else rare and expensive, there is a dark side
6:06
Speaker 1: to it, and truffles are no exception, no note, um,
6:10
Speaker 1: and truffles are really amazing little creatures. I had no idea. Um.
6:15
Speaker 1: I mean, I figured that they were, like I think
6:18
Speaker 1: just about everybody else who never really looked into truffles
6:21
Speaker 1: that much, that they were very much like mushrooms. Um,
6:25
Speaker 1: and they are related to mushrooms only in that they
6:29
Speaker 1: are both part of the same kingdom. Fun guy. So
6:33
Speaker 1: to say like, um, truffles are related to mushrooms is
6:36
Speaker 1: basically the same thing as saying that human beings are
6:39
Speaker 1: related to starfish, because we're both part of the kingdom.
6:42
Speaker 1: That's how distantly related mushrooms and truffles are. They they
6:48
Speaker 1: they diverged at the division level, which is right under kingdom.
6:52
Speaker 1: So they're they're only related in the most basic way
6:56
Speaker 1: that something can be related, not in any kind of
6:58
Speaker 1: complex or even loose way whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, one
7:03
Speaker 1: of the biggest differences between mushrooms and truffles are mushrooms
7:07
Speaker 1: grow above ground and truffles, as most people know, grow underground,
7:12
Speaker 1: which is why you need to hunt. And it's called hunting.
7:14
Speaker 1: It's not technically it's not called foraging or collecting. It's
7:18
Speaker 1: called truffle hunting that you used to do with pigs
7:22
Speaker 1: because pigs, you know, don't need to be trained. They
7:25
Speaker 1: know where to go to get those truffles. Now they
7:28
Speaker 1: use dogs for a few reasons. One is because dogs
7:33
Speaker 1: don't want to eat the truffles and pigs do. So
7:34
Speaker 1: a pig finds that truffle and you gotta then you
7:36
Speaker 1: gotta get it away from that big like really quick.
7:40
Speaker 1: Dogs I want to eat those things. Dog just want
7:41
Speaker 1: to make master happy. And so you can kind of
7:44
Speaker 1: train a dog to do this and turn it into
7:46
Speaker 1: a game. And then you know, the other reason listed
7:49
Speaker 1: here was like you truffle hunt three months out of
7:51
Speaker 1: the year and then you got a pig for the
7:53
Speaker 1: other nine months, which I say is great, but other
7:55
Speaker 1: people are like, these are hundreds of pounds and dogs
7:58
Speaker 1: are better pets and easier to care right exactly. Um,
8:02
Speaker 1: the reason people use pigs in the first place, which
8:04
Speaker 1: seems kind of weird on its face, but truffles produce
8:07
Speaker 1: a um, a kind of volatile organic compound called andrew
8:12
Speaker 1: steen all or in drosten all um, and that is
8:16
Speaker 1: actually the same thing as a sex hormone scent that
8:22
Speaker 1: male pigs put out. So if you go truffle hunting,
8:24
Speaker 1: you want to take a female pig because they're actually
8:26
Speaker 1: rooting out a sex scent. Um. I guess they think that, uh,
8:31
Speaker 1: a male pig and his junk are buried just you know,
8:34
Speaker 1: between two and fifteen inches underground, and so they start
8:37
Speaker 1: rooting through the ground and end up finding truffles and then,
8:40
Speaker 1: like you said, try to eat it, so you have
8:41
Speaker 1: to wrestle it away from them. Sweet pigs, they are sweet, um.
8:46
Speaker 1: But yeah, so dogs make a lot more sense. So
8:49
Speaker 1: it's pretty rare from what I understand, to see somebody
8:52
Speaker 1: hunting with a pig these days, unless they're just like
8:54
Speaker 1: some pipster purist who also like butcher's the pig after
8:58
Speaker 1: the truffle hunt to you know, um, just out of
9:02
Speaker 1: respect man. And then um, there's another thing you can do.
9:05
Speaker 1: If you're like, well, I can't afford a pig, or
9:06
Speaker 1: I can't afford a dog because I've never found a
9:08
Speaker 1: truffle and sold one. I'm saving up um. You can
9:12
Speaker 1: get yourself just a little a little um. There's a
9:15
Speaker 1: kind of truffle spade called a sapin you can dig
9:18
Speaker 1: them up with. And there's actually other natural signs that
9:21
Speaker 1: you can look for um when you look for truffle um.
9:25
Speaker 1: One is the su Wilia fly, which likes to plant
9:29
Speaker 1: um itself. It's burrows just above truffles, so you see
9:33
Speaker 1: this specific kind of fly. If you learn to identify
9:36
Speaker 1: that fly, you can remind yep. And then also there's
9:40
Speaker 1: something called the brew ley like cranbrew lay, but it
9:43
Speaker 1: means burned in French. And it's a dark patch of
9:47
Speaker 1: earth um around the base of the tree where the
9:50
Speaker 1: truffles growing. And we'll talk about why they grow there
9:52
Speaker 1: in a second, but this dark patch of earth is
9:54
Speaker 1: actually basically antibiotics that um the truffle itself or the
10:01
Speaker 1: fun guy that the truffle grows from puts out two
10:05
Speaker 1: poison the ground above it, because it doesn't do very
10:10
Speaker 1: well if there's a lot of vegetation growing around it.
10:12
Speaker 1: It does really well growing around among the roots of trees.
10:15
Speaker 1: It doesn't like a very clear or it doesn't like
10:17
Speaker 1: a very thick under underbrush. It likes it to be
10:20
Speaker 1: nice and clear and airy. So it kills off any
10:23
Speaker 1: potential seeds or or um weeds or grass or anything
10:28
Speaker 1: that might be growing right above it. And then amazing,
10:30
Speaker 1: So the truffle says, I shall scorch the earth above me. Exactly, yes, exactly,
10:37
Speaker 1: that's amazing. So you see those signs, you probably have
10:40
Speaker 1: a truffle down there. So you don't need a dog
10:42
Speaker 1: or a pig. You just need to be good at that. Yeah,
10:45
Speaker 1: true hipster, the kind of the pointy chin beard. They
10:49
Speaker 1: just look for truffles by hunting for brulet. All right, well,
10:55
Speaker 1: let's take a break. That's a good setup. Our hipster
10:58
Speaker 1: is still a thing. I don't know. I haven't been
11:01
Speaker 1: out of my house in a year or so, so
11:02
Speaker 1: I can't tell if they're still around or not. Maybe
11:05
Speaker 1: they all went away during the pandemic. They were they
11:08
Speaker 1: rethought their lives, and they're gonna come out as sincere,
11:11
Speaker 1: non ironic humans. All right, which is what we're gonna do.
11:15
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a break and come back as that
11:17
Speaker 1: right after this. All right. So, truffles are these underground
11:43
Speaker 1: things that you eat. I don't even think we said that.
11:45
Speaker 1: We did. We talked about eating truffles at the beginning.
11:47
Speaker 1: I guess now I'm all paranoid that we're not explaining
11:50
Speaker 1: things soon enough. Why because the foodies are listening. Well,
11:54
Speaker 1: because people are like, you've waited fifteen minutes before you
11:56
Speaker 1: even said what X was. I think those people are joking.
12:00
Speaker 1: They're making fun of our paranoia. Yeah, that's how I've
12:04
Speaker 1: been taking it and thirteen years and it really doesn't matter, right, No,
12:08
Speaker 1: not at all, as long as people are still listening,
12:11
Speaker 1: we're doing okay. Truffles are these things that are very rare,
12:13
Speaker 1: They're hard to find, they're hard to get, they're very expensive,
12:16
Speaker 1: which we'll get to. Uh. And there are many different kinds.
12:19
Speaker 1: There are thousands of varieties of truffle. But if you're
12:22
Speaker 1: talking on a macro level, sort of the basics of
12:24
Speaker 1: truffles that you would hunt and eat you've got black
12:28
Speaker 1: truffles and white truffles and burgundy truffles and then some
12:32
Speaker 1: other you know, lesser known truffles. But you really want
12:35
Speaker 1: to talk about black and white truffles as the two
12:38
Speaker 1: leading truffles that you're gonna find on a plate if
12:41
Speaker 1: you have a lot of money, right, and if if
12:43
Speaker 1: they're um, you're actually specifically talking about the black French
12:47
Speaker 1: truffle um, the tuber milani sporum um from Paragore, France,
12:53
Speaker 1: southwest France. Um. And then that's so that's like the
12:57
Speaker 1: prized black truffle. The prized white truffle, which is actually
13:01
Speaker 1: even rarer and even more expensive than the Paregord truffle
13:05
Speaker 1: um is the tuber magnantum pico, the albo truffle from
13:10
Speaker 1: the Piedmont area of Italy. And then, like you said,
13:12
Speaker 1: the burgundy one, right, the black ones. If you if
13:16
Speaker 1: you look at it, it's sort of like a lumpy um.
13:19
Speaker 1: It sort of looks like has the texture of like
13:21
Speaker 1: a leechy, but it's not colorful. It's black and it's
13:25
Speaker 1: sort of lumpy, and it looks like a clump of dirt.
13:29
Speaker 1: Maybe some people say it looks like poop um. If
13:32
Speaker 1: you if you slice it open, it looks like it's
13:35
Speaker 1: very has that dense marbl ing like a really nice
13:39
Speaker 1: cut of beef might have, Yeah, like wye goo beef. Yeah,
13:43
Speaker 1: which is just amazing to see. If have you ever
13:45
Speaker 1: seen that stuff? For all the beef, for the truffle
13:49
Speaker 1: the beef. I've seen both, yes, okay, yeah, so why
13:52
Speaker 1: do you even ask? I don't know, but they do
13:54
Speaker 1: look alike that that really really dense veiny marbling. The
13:58
Speaker 1: white truffle, on the other hand, it looks sort of
14:00
Speaker 1: like a little you know, you know, the little round
14:03
Speaker 1: white potatoes. It looks like those, not like a baker potato,
14:07
Speaker 1: but it looks sort of like a white potato. Yeah,
14:10
Speaker 1: like Yukon gold, but white. Sure. I like the Yukon gold.
14:15
Speaker 1: Those are good. They're both pungent in the in The
14:17
Speaker 1: odor apparently, is really hard to describe. I've seen so
14:21
Speaker 1: many different creative, kind of fun and goofy ways to
14:24
Speaker 1: describe the aroma of a truffle um. I've heard a
14:30
Speaker 1: lot of people say they're stinky. Some people say like
14:32
Speaker 1: locker room like funky earthy, Yeah, funky and earthy. It's
14:36
Speaker 1: almost as much fun as describing what a theorem in
14:40
Speaker 1: sounds like exactly. I think burgundy truffles are a little
14:45
Speaker 1: more aromatic. But you know there, it's a very unique smell,
14:49
Speaker 1: and I think they're they're kind of stinky, supposedly. Yeah.
14:52
Speaker 1: One of the reasons they're stinky is because um truffles.
14:55
Speaker 1: So the truffle you're eating is the fruiting body, just
14:57
Speaker 1: like when you eat a mushroom, like a button mushroom.
15:00
Speaker 1: That's not the fun guy. That's the fruit that grows
15:02
Speaker 1: off of the fun guy, and it has the spores
15:04
Speaker 1: and the spores spread everywhere. Um, and and truffles have
15:09
Speaker 1: have spores as well, but they're sequestered inside of it.
15:12
Speaker 1: They're not on the outside all hanging out, letting its
15:14
Speaker 1: junk hang around like some common mushroom. Um. They keep
15:17
Speaker 1: theirs inside and until marriage, and by marriage, I mean
15:21
Speaker 1: until an animal roots them up and eats them and
15:24
Speaker 1: then poops it out somewhere else. UM. So in that sense,
15:27
Speaker 1: they're they're different from mushrooms as well, but they have
15:31
Speaker 1: that funky smell because on the outside, when they're in
15:34
Speaker 1: the dirt, they're actually colonized by all sorts of bacteria.
15:38
Speaker 1: And yeast and all sorts of weird little things that
15:40
Speaker 1: helped create the symbiotic relationship that the fun guy uh
15:45
Speaker 1: has with the tree roots that it grows within. So yeah,
15:49
Speaker 1: you mentioned trees. Uh, this is really interesting. Like I
15:52
Speaker 1: never I didn't know much about truffles at all, and
15:55
Speaker 1: my whole thought was like, why are these things so rare?
15:57
Speaker 1: Like why can't people just plant truffles like any other
16:01
Speaker 1: vegetable you might grow? And the reason why is is
16:04
Speaker 1: you can't. Really there is a process, but it's not
16:09
Speaker 1: like planting any other plant, I think, And they've been
16:12
Speaker 1: doing it for thirty five years in the United States
16:14
Speaker 1: at failure rate. So it's really hard to uh to grow.
16:22
Speaker 1: And I don't even know if that's the right word. Yeah,
16:25
Speaker 1: just kind of um yeah, because they're they're like there're
16:29
Speaker 1: a miracle of nature in a certain way. They're they're
16:31
Speaker 1: a micro riz a, which means that they're a fun
16:33
Speaker 1: guy that has a symbiotic relationship with the tree that
16:37
Speaker 1: they grow at. Right, and usually in Europe usually find
16:40
Speaker 1: them growing around the roots of um oak trees or
16:44
Speaker 1: hazel trees. Um in the US they grow at the
16:47
Speaker 1: base of pecan trees and then oak trees here to
16:50
Speaker 1: um in Oregon, they grow at the base of Douglas
16:53
Speaker 1: fir trees. So like certain species of um of truffles
17:00
Speaker 1: row like at certain the basis of certain trees, because
17:04
Speaker 1: they have these relationships where the truffle or the micro riza,
17:08
Speaker 1: the fung the fungus that gives rise to the truffle
17:11
Speaker 1: that we eat um, it has its own symbiotic relationship
17:15
Speaker 1: with a bunch of bacteria and yeast. Like I said
17:17
Speaker 1: that it colonized it and those things take nutrients from
17:21
Speaker 1: the soil, like nitrates and phosphates and convert them into
17:27
Speaker 1: nitrogen and phosphorus, which is usable for the tree. So
17:31
Speaker 1: the trees growing around all these different forms of nitrogen
17:33
Speaker 1: and fosters, but it can't do anything with it. This
17:36
Speaker 1: micro riz a, this fung gui converts it into usable
17:39
Speaker 1: form for the tree and pumps it into the tree's roots,
17:43
Speaker 1: feeds the tree nutrients and in exchange, the tree says,
17:47
Speaker 1: here has some carbohydrates, I'll trade you, and the microiza
17:51
Speaker 1: the fungi says, thank you very much. Yeah. So if
17:54
Speaker 1: you're gonna try and uh cultivate, I guess that's the
17:57
Speaker 1: word I'm looking for a truffle, is you inject a
18:00
Speaker 1: special uh these special fungi spores into this oak or
18:05
Speaker 1: this hazel nut tree when they're just little seedlings, and
18:08
Speaker 1: then you plant that tree and then cross your fingers
18:13
Speaker 1: basically that that tree is going to grow up and
18:16
Speaker 1: be healthy, because that's the first step. You gotta have
18:17
Speaker 1: a tree that works, and then that those truffles are
18:21
Speaker 1: gonna attach to those tree roots underground. And you can't
18:24
Speaker 1: you know, I imagine it's frustrating in that you can't
18:27
Speaker 1: look at your harvest and just see it growing on
18:29
Speaker 1: top of the ground. You just have to have a
18:32
Speaker 1: lot of patients because I think it takes uh like
18:36
Speaker 1: four years on average for this to work out to
18:39
Speaker 1: where you're yielding a truffle two percent of the time.
18:43
Speaker 1: In the United States, Um, we're trying here. It's just
18:47
Speaker 1: you know, apparently we have the right climate like on
18:49
Speaker 1: the West coast where you were talking about some mid
18:51
Speaker 1: Atlantic states Carolina's, Virginia's, southern Kentucky, northern Alabama, and I
18:57
Speaker 1: think New Mexico and Arizona are only where it's possible
19:01
Speaker 1: to get failure rate right. And we should say this
19:05
Speaker 1: is where they're trying to grow like paragore truffles or
19:09
Speaker 1: alba truffles, like the really highly prized one. The United
19:13
Speaker 1: States has its own indigenous truffles. There's something like four
19:15
Speaker 1: thousand or five thousand species of truffles. It was just right,
19:19
Speaker 1: their garbage truffles. It's just that there's like three species
19:23
Speaker 1: that are genuinely prized and that can go for like
19:26
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars a pound, depending on how bad or
19:28
Speaker 1: good the harvest was that year. UM. But the United
19:31
Speaker 1: States has indigenous ones, like there's the Oregon truffle, which
19:34
Speaker 1: grows to the base of Douglas first. There's Pecan truffles,
19:37
Speaker 1: which grow basically everywhere from Florida up to Nova Scotia
19:42
Speaker 1: UM west of the Rocky or east of the Rockies
19:45
Speaker 1: uh in North America. UM. And there's a couple of
19:48
Speaker 1: other kinds to from what I saw. James Beard, the
19:51
Speaker 1: revered UM chef and food guy, UH, he said that
19:56
Speaker 1: you could substitute um a Oregon truffle for a white
20:01
Speaker 1: alba truffle and it would do. Yeah, if he signed
20:05
Speaker 1: off on it. That means it's definitely okay. Well, they're
20:08
Speaker 1: not cheap either, I mean, I think these American varieties
20:12
Speaker 1: can go for like a hundred bucks a pound, which
20:14
Speaker 1: is a lot of money for a pound of something. Um,
20:19
Speaker 1: but it's not like you know, we'll get to the
20:20
Speaker 1: crazy prices at these auctions later on. But it's nothing
20:24
Speaker 1: like European mushroom around European truffles, uh, namely Italian and French.
20:30
Speaker 1: Like you said, I think Spain is the largest producer
20:33
Speaker 1: of truffles. Then you have UK, Australia, Chile, South Africa, Sweden,
20:40
Speaker 1: New Zealand, and then China apparently is uh really involved
20:45
Speaker 1: in the truffle market and kind of undercutting price wise. Right. Yes, um,
20:50
Speaker 1: I actually saw that Australia is killing it in the
20:53
Speaker 1: truffle cultivating game. Yeah, they started in and that was
21:00
Speaker 1: when they first inoculated their saplings. I also saw another
21:02
Speaker 1: way to do it, chuck, is even easier. You just
21:04
Speaker 1: take a bunch of truffle puade up, dip the oak
21:08
Speaker 1: sapling roots into this puree and just grow those injections.
21:15
Speaker 1: No injection necessary. I'm sure the oak prefers that way too.
21:18
Speaker 1: It's just a little baby, um. But they the Australia's
21:23
Speaker 1: got their first harvest and they are growing paragore truffles,
21:29
Speaker 1: which paragore truffles are less rare, maybe because of Australia
21:34
Speaker 1: than the white alba truffles from the Piedmont of Italy
21:37
Speaker 1: and Croatia. Um and the alba truffles are far more expensive.
21:43
Speaker 1: But a lot of people prefer the paragore black truffle
21:46
Speaker 1: from France. Just taste um in general that a lot
21:50
Speaker 1: of people prefer the black truffle. So that's the one
21:52
Speaker 1: that the Australians are growing, and they now rival in
21:56
Speaker 1: the harvest by weight what France every year and they're good, Yes, there,
22:03
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. It's that truffle and they're supposedly amazing. Well,
22:07
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are some people that the French would
22:08
Speaker 1: probably say, no, no, no, the tera war is not
22:11
Speaker 1: the same, of course, you know, that's exactly what they
22:14
Speaker 1: would say. In the Australians would say, forget that mate.
22:20
Speaker 1: How is that Australia truffle season is short? Depending on
22:25
Speaker 1: the truffle, I mean, they're all short seasons. But you're
22:27
Speaker 1: gonna get your white and burgundies from September to December
22:32
Speaker 1: and then winter blacks from December to March. Being kit
22:37
Speaker 1: these in February and March, and then summer black and
22:40
Speaker 1: white truffles from May to August. And the reason why
22:43
Speaker 1: we are mentioning just when truffle season comes around is
22:47
Speaker 1: because truffles, they do freeze them and they do can them,
22:50
Speaker 1: but it's not the same. You want to eat a
22:52
Speaker 1: truffle within four to six days after you take it
22:55
Speaker 1: out of the ground. Yeah. This this the truffle market
22:58
Speaker 1: is one of those rare ones where there is a
23:00
Speaker 1: lot of hype and there's a lot of like Fraser
23:02
Speaker 1: and Niles Crane types running around buying this stuff up
23:05
Speaker 1: and caring about it and talking about it to their
23:07
Speaker 1: friends and all that. But it's not in it's not
23:12
Speaker 1: a bloated market in that respect, like it is genuinely
23:16
Speaker 1: scarce in supply, and in the United States it's even
23:19
Speaker 1: scarcer because, like you said, we've got a failure rate
23:23
Speaker 1: and growing them here ourselves, and they have such a
23:26
Speaker 1: short shelf life ten days tops if you're doing everything
23:30
Speaker 1: right and storing them, um that to get them here
23:33
Speaker 1: in the US in any kind of quick way from
23:36
Speaker 1: a place where they're already scarce, where they're growing over
23:39
Speaker 1: like in say Europe, Uh, you can understand. It actually
23:42
Speaker 1: makes sense why they're so ridiculously expensive. Yeah, and you know,
23:46
Speaker 1: I went online today because I was like, can you
23:48
Speaker 1: even buy truffles online? Not right now? I mean, yeah, yeah,
23:52
Speaker 1: they're just all out of stock right. Well, No, I
23:54
Speaker 1: found some that were in a jar. Uh, and it's
23:58
Speaker 1: it's not like the whole ruffle, it's just a piece
24:02
Speaker 1: of a truffle. And the price I found for the
24:04
Speaker 1: black French one was uh on this one website was
24:09
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks for point eight ounces. Okay, so less
24:14
Speaker 1: than announced was a hundred bucks. So I saw some
24:17
Speaker 1: some they were all out of stock, but some like
24:19
Speaker 1: gourmet sites, um said they can get them and they're
24:23
Speaker 1: more like, um, like forty eight dollars announce for for
24:28
Speaker 1: like the small size, medium sized. And I looked, I
24:31
Speaker 1: was like, is that is that right? And that seemed
24:33
Speaker 1: kind of in line with it. But you also see
24:37
Speaker 1: like crazy prices all over the place, like all these
24:40
Speaker 1: things are, you know, two thousand dollars a pound, or
24:42
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars a pound, or seven thousand dollars a pound.
24:44
Speaker 1: Those typically are the white Alba truffles and the black
24:48
Speaker 1: paragorre truffles are maybe a quarter of that, but it
24:52
Speaker 1: all depends on how the harvest was that year. And
24:54
Speaker 1: apparently the harvest has been going down, which is another
24:57
Speaker 1: reason that so expensive has been going down Italy for
25:00
Speaker 1: the last century or so. Well. Climate change, that's a
25:04
Speaker 1: big one apparently. Do you remember when I said that
25:07
Speaker 1: truffles like to grow in um light airy regions. Even
25:11
Speaker 1: though they grow underground, they like the above ground to
25:13
Speaker 1: be a certain way. They're real high maintenance in that
25:16
Speaker 1: sense and controlling. Um that there's so many people have
25:20
Speaker 1: moved from the Paraguay region or the Pibon of Italy
25:24
Speaker 1: into the cities. And since like the eighteen eighties eighteen
25:27
Speaker 1: nineties when they really started harvesting these for the international market.
25:31
Speaker 1: Um that these areas have become kind of unkempt and
25:34
Speaker 1: grown over, and that, in addition to climate change is
25:37
Speaker 1: affecting the yields like dramatically. I think there was something. Um,
25:43
Speaker 1: do you have the statistics for the yields between the
25:46
Speaker 1: nineteenth century and today? Chuck, get ready for your socks
25:51
Speaker 1: to be knocked off? Are they on right now? They're on?
25:54
Speaker 1: I just put on so you could knock them off.
25:57
Speaker 1: So in eighteen ninety a total harvest and I'm not
26:01
Speaker 1: quite sure maybe this was all commercial truffles, but there
26:04
Speaker 1: was a total of tons that were harvested in eighteen
26:09
Speaker 1: nine around the world. That's still pretty scarce if you
26:12
Speaker 1: think about it. For an annual harvest globally in it
26:17
Speaker 1: was down to three hundred tons from undred tons. These
26:22
Speaker 1: days it can be anywhere from twenty five tons to
26:24
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty tons a year. That is scarce,
26:27
Speaker 1: and that's why they cost this kind of money. It's
26:30
Speaker 1: um and like you said, it's not an artificial market. Uh,
26:34
Speaker 1: there's there's one that sold at auction, a four point
26:40
Speaker 1: one six pound white truffle for sixty dollars. Yeah. It
26:47
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense to me because it's like, well, it's
26:49
Speaker 1: just a big giant truffle that seems way more than
26:52
Speaker 1: it would be if you bought that same amount, just
26:57
Speaker 1: the same weight, but in multiple truffles. It just seemed
26:59
Speaker 1: really I don't know if somebody's like, I don't want
27:01
Speaker 1: the world's biggest truffle kind of I think it like
27:05
Speaker 1: where they bidding using like a giant foam number one hand?
27:10
Speaker 1: Is that kind of guy? Maybe he paid he paid
27:15
Speaker 1: a million dollars for that foam, the largest foam rubber
27:17
Speaker 1: number one. It's right use. One of the things I
27:21
Speaker 1: was seeing also about climate change affecting truffles is that
27:25
Speaker 1: so truffles like it we they like it somewhat cool,
27:28
Speaker 1: and they like it kempt, and like I said, the
27:31
Speaker 1: regions that they normally grow are getting unkempt, and they're
27:34
Speaker 1: getting hotter, and they're getting drier, like climate change is
27:37
Speaker 1: bringing more extreme weather like droughts kind of thing, and
27:40
Speaker 1: they're also bringing hotter weather weather two regions like the
27:43
Speaker 1: southwest of France or the Piedmont of Spain or Italy.
27:47
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, um that where where it didn't used to
27:51
Speaker 1: be that hot back in like say, when you're getting
27:54
Speaker 1: like tons annually. So all of these combined on top
27:59
Speaker 1: of the idea that even under the best of circumstances,
28:03
Speaker 1: the normal life cycle for a particular micro riz, a
28:06
Speaker 1: that produces truffles that you you want, like an alba
28:09
Speaker 1: or paragore, maybe produces truffles for fifteen to thirty years
28:14
Speaker 1: in the wild, and then after that it says good
28:16
Speaker 1: night forever. And the French and the Spanish and a
28:20
Speaker 1: lot of the traditionalists in Europe say, well, then that's
28:23
Speaker 1: that we just need to move on and find another tree. Well,
28:26
Speaker 1: they're finding that they're they're not growing under other trees,
28:30
Speaker 1: and so there's kind of this pushed to start inoculating
28:33
Speaker 1: trees there in Spain and in the southwest of France,
28:36
Speaker 1: and Europe has long been pushing back on the idea
28:39
Speaker 1: of kind of introducing man's hand to this human kind's hand,
28:43
Speaker 1: I should say, and I think they're starting to kind
28:45
Speaker 1: of rethink that kind of thing these days. Should we
28:49
Speaker 1: take another break? Sure? All right, we'll take another break
28:52
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit more about the flavor
28:55
Speaker 1: in the trade and what these things are even used for.
28:59
Speaker 1: Right after this. Alright, so the truffle trade, like we said,
29:24
Speaker 1: check out that Atlantic article. I'm gonna read it closer
29:26
Speaker 1: after this because it's just really interesting. Uh, there is
29:29
Speaker 1: a dark side of course to this trade. Um. They're
29:33
Speaker 1: people poison each other's dogs. It's awful. Um. The guy
29:36
Speaker 1: who wrote that article said that he, you know, anecdotally,
29:39
Speaker 1: talked to different veterinarians, said that they've got two or
29:42
Speaker 1: three a week dogs being poisoned, and there were a
29:46
Speaker 1: lot of vets in the area that we're saying the
29:47
Speaker 1: same thing. So that's horrific on its surface. Um slashing
29:54
Speaker 1: tires of course, robberies, heists. Uh. Fake truffle while not fake,
30:00
Speaker 1: but just inflated truffles with the weight like we were
30:02
Speaker 1: talking about. And you might like hear all this and
30:06
Speaker 1: just be like why, Like, I know they're rare, but
30:09
Speaker 1: is this caviare to chuck? Is it this thing that
30:14
Speaker 1: is so delicious that you must have it? And you know,
30:18
Speaker 1: I don't know because I've never had it. I do
30:20
Speaker 1: like the taste of truffle oil, and this this fake truffle.
30:24
Speaker 1: I think in the seventies, uh, an Italian chemist isolated
30:29
Speaker 1: one of the flavor producing compounds and recreated it, so
30:32
Speaker 1: we do have the asynthetic truffley taste. But apparently that's
30:37
Speaker 1: like they isolated one of these compounds that is not
30:40
Speaker 1: what a real truffle tastes like. Is what people say
30:42
Speaker 1: that have had real trouffles. No, it's like so complicated
30:45
Speaker 1: and complex because again some at least some of the
30:48
Speaker 1: smells and tastes that are coming off of the truffle
30:51
Speaker 1: you're eating are coming from the colonizing bacteria and yeasts
30:55
Speaker 1: that are growing all over it too, and as they're
30:58
Speaker 1: exposed to air, they start to kind of eye off
31:00
Speaker 1: and that's where the smell in the odor goes, at
31:02
Speaker 1: least in part. So, to to just kind of nail
31:05
Speaker 1: one particular flavor compound and say that's truffle flavor. I
31:11
Speaker 1: think it's two four die thiah pentane. Yeah. Um, just
31:17
Speaker 1: to say that that's thank you, Just to say that
31:19
Speaker 1: that's truffle flavor not only misses all of the nuance
31:24
Speaker 1: of truffles, apparently I'm speaking from just somebody who's only
31:27
Speaker 1: been exposed to two for die thiah pentane pretty much. Um.
31:31
Speaker 1: But then also if you eat enough of that, if
31:33
Speaker 1: you eat too much truffle popcorn with parmesan shavings at
31:36
Speaker 1: the nice movie theater in town, um, you are going
31:40
Speaker 1: to kind of, um desensitize yourself to actual truffles. So
31:44
Speaker 1: if you actually say I'm gonna get some truffles this
31:47
Speaker 1: season and try it, uh, it might be lost on
31:50
Speaker 1: you because you're just used to that kind of the
31:52
Speaker 1: clunkiest version of the truffle flavor. I'm taking that risk,
31:56
Speaker 1: I guess. I mean it is good like truffle. Truffle
32:00
Speaker 1: will flavor at anything is pretty great. I like it it. Um.
32:03
Speaker 1: It is even hard to describe with just that one compound.
32:06
Speaker 1: It's hard to kind of you know, it's sort of
32:08
Speaker 1: a new mommy richness. Uh it is earthy. I like
32:12
Speaker 1: the flavor, and I'm not going to be, you know,
32:15
Speaker 1: eating many real truffles in my life if any. So,
32:17
Speaker 1: I'm not really worried about ruining my my trouble ballot.
32:21
Speaker 1: Uh So, I'm happy to have that stuff. It's fine,
32:24
Speaker 1: sure for this guy. It's truffles for the rest of us,
32:27
Speaker 1: that's right. So if you do come upon some truffles
32:32
Speaker 1: that you want to um that, if you just say, Okay,
32:35
Speaker 1: I've got a hundred bucks, I'm gonna spend on truffles,
32:38
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do it. Um. Uncle Joe Biden sent
32:41
Speaker 1: me a check and I'm gonna use a hundred dollars
32:43
Speaker 1: of it on truffles. I'm gonna healthy, I'm gonna stimulate
32:46
Speaker 1: the economy and trickle down. Um. So what would you do, Chuck,
32:50
Speaker 1: What's what's your first move? Well, you want them within
32:54
Speaker 1: five to six days after they've been harvested. You want
32:57
Speaker 1: to keep them in a closed container, wrapped in a
33:00
Speaker 1: paper towel, because you really want to keep them dry.
33:02
Speaker 1: Wet truffle is no good, despite the fact that they
33:05
Speaker 1: love wetness to grow. You want to keep that thing
33:08
Speaker 1: dry if you want to get a little more bang
33:10
Speaker 1: for your buck and not actually use any of the truffle,
33:13
Speaker 1: but in part that flavor. You want to douse it
33:16
Speaker 1: in two four, store it in a in a clothes
33:21
Speaker 1: like glass tupperware. It's not tupperware if it's glass, but
33:25
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, glass dish with some cheese,
33:29
Speaker 1: open cheese, or even eggs that have not you know,
33:32
Speaker 1: just eggs in their shell, and it will actually somehow
33:36
Speaker 1: by way of magic. The cheese makes sense, but it
33:39
Speaker 1: will actually penetrate that egg and flavor that egg somehow
33:43
Speaker 1: in that nuts that is nuts. That's how potent those
33:46
Speaker 1: things smell. That they actually make it through eggs shells
33:49
Speaker 1: inside and then just um inculcates them. But like you said,
33:55
Speaker 1: you want to keep it simple. I mean, I don't
33:57
Speaker 1: know if I'd go so far as to say bland,
33:58
Speaker 1: but they say like shaving truffle on a very simple
34:03
Speaker 1: risotto dish or just plain parmesan scrambled eggs, plain parmesan
34:08
Speaker 1: Pasta pizza is a big one, like a you know,
34:12
Speaker 1: just sort of a cheese pizza, like a really nice one.
34:15
Speaker 1: Would fire pizza with shaved truffle on top is supposed
34:17
Speaker 1: to be great. Yeah, that's the thing. You don't have
34:19
Speaker 1: to do anything with it. You just shave it raw.
34:21
Speaker 1: You don't have to cook it. It's not like some
34:23
Speaker 1: hard thing to to use. You just you shave it
34:26
Speaker 1: onto something and let it shine. Apparently the ancient Romans
34:31
Speaker 1: used to cook it and eat it with honey, but
34:33
Speaker 1: they also thought that truffles were created when lightning struck
34:37
Speaker 1: damp earth, So don't put a lot of stock into
34:40
Speaker 1: their thoughts, Like, just use it, you know, shaved fresh
34:43
Speaker 1: truffles onto a very nice dish. Yeah, and you know,
34:46
Speaker 1: if you want to go to a nice steakhouse and
34:49
Speaker 1: get truffle butter on your steak, it's not gonna be
34:53
Speaker 1: real truffle. But who cares? I no, no, I could
34:56
Speaker 1: see Kevin Rath when using real truffle. Do you think?
35:00
Speaker 1: How about this? If you are getting that steak and
35:03
Speaker 1: it's outside of truffle season, it's not real truffle. But
35:06
Speaker 1: if you know when truffle season is right. So say
35:09
Speaker 1: you're going between um November and the end of March
35:13
Speaker 1: to a really nice steakhouse, it's possible that they are
35:15
Speaker 1: using real truffles that night. Yeah, and it's shaved super
35:20
Speaker 1: super thin, like when you see it on a on
35:22
Speaker 1: a food item. It's you know they have these razor
35:25
Speaker 1: sharp well I guess they're razors. And it always reminds
35:30
Speaker 1: me of of Good Fellas. I cannot think of of
35:35
Speaker 1: shaving something with a razor blade and not think of
35:38
Speaker 1: the scene and Good Fellas in prison where Polly had
35:41
Speaker 1: his technique where he would shave it so thin it
35:44
Speaker 1: would it would what would you say? It would liquefy
35:47
Speaker 1: in the fan. It's so great, man. I love that
35:50
Speaker 1: part when they were in prison and just like living
35:53
Speaker 1: high on the hog yep um have Do you ever
35:56
Speaker 1: eat roasted garlic like on toast? Not on toast, but
36:01
Speaker 1: a roast gar like plenty? Sure, but yeah, just like
36:04
Speaker 1: spread it on toast? About that? Just take a whole bulb,
36:06
Speaker 1: spread it on some toast and thank me later. It's
36:09
Speaker 1: really good for your guts. You know what I've been
36:12
Speaker 1: doing lately is the I don't know why I didn't
36:16
Speaker 1: know it existed. Everything bagel is my favorite bagel, and
36:19
Speaker 1: they make everything bagel shakers Trader Joe's. Uh no, but
36:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's good too, but just at a regular store.
36:28
Speaker 1: And uh so I just keep that. I put that
36:30
Speaker 1: on a lot of stuff, like, uh, just avocado toast
36:34
Speaker 1: with that that stuff. My buddy Eddie trened me onto
36:36
Speaker 1: that was shaking that stuff on some avocado toast. Mm hmm.
36:41
Speaker 1: I know. Yeah. You can put it on just chunks
36:43
Speaker 1: of avocado and it sounds it tastes very good too.
36:46
Speaker 1: You can put it on anything. Let's be honest. Do
36:48
Speaker 1: you can put it on an old shoe? What else
36:51
Speaker 1: you got? I got nothing else. That's it I want
36:54
Speaker 1: to eat. I want to eat a real truffle. Uh.
36:57
Speaker 1: If you eat a real truffle, it'll probably taste so
36:59
Speaker 1: good it'll make you do a truffle shuffle. All right,
37:03
Speaker 1: very nice? Uh Well, since I said truffle shuffle, everybody,
37:07
Speaker 1: I think it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call
37:12
Speaker 1: this Titanic role play. Did you see this one? No?
37:17
Speaker 1: This is really neat and this is not kicky. No, No,
37:21
Speaker 1: I mean it didn't even cross my mind. Just the
37:24
Speaker 1: just on its face, it's hilarious. Okay, hey guys, my
37:27
Speaker 1: name is Anica and I've been listening since about really
37:29
Speaker 1: love learning from you guys and listening to your episodes. Uh.
37:34
Speaker 1: Last year, during beginning of quarantine, many of my family members,
37:36
Speaker 1: including myself. We're quarantining at my mom's house and is
37:40
Speaker 1: you and everyone else knows, we hit a point in
37:41
Speaker 1: our house where everyone got a little loopy. I'm not
37:44
Speaker 1: really sure how it got started, but we decided to
37:46
Speaker 1: have a Titanic party on the anniversary of the ship sinking.
37:49
Speaker 1: Everyone was assigned a real passenger crew member on the
37:52
Speaker 1: Titanic and had to act out the part for the evening,
37:55
Speaker 1: including dressing up. Even dogs got parts two. By the way,
38:00
Speaker 1: send in pictures of them dressed up with their animals
38:02
Speaker 1: dressed up, and it was pretty great. We had a
38:05
Speaker 1: meal based off one of the menus recovered from the ship,
38:08
Speaker 1: and we had to eat in certain areas according to
38:10
Speaker 1: our class. Wow, this is so great. After dinner, we
38:16
Speaker 1: read a short memorial and with my friends, uh, my
38:19
Speaker 1: friend playing Nearer my God to Thee on the cello,
38:21
Speaker 1: took a and this was all in video. It's fantastic.
38:24
Speaker 1: Took a five minute plunge in the freezing pool to
38:27
Speaker 1: commemorate the sinking. Uh. Then to finish out the night,
38:30
Speaker 1: we round we found out if our passenger crew member
38:33
Speaker 1: had lived or died, and then watched the movie from
38:39
Speaker 1: I want to go to this party? Man? Yeah, how
38:41
Speaker 1: much fun is that? It's pretty cool? Your episode was
38:44
Speaker 1: more than perfect because we decided to make this an
38:46
Speaker 1: annual party. Oh, there you go, and they held it
38:49
Speaker 1: a few weekends ago. Well, Anka, send me the invite.
38:56
Speaker 1: I don't know where you live, but your family looks
38:57
Speaker 1: awesome and I want to go to that thing. Yeah, totally.
39:01
Speaker 1: I can't find that listener mail anywhere. I want to
39:04
Speaker 1: see these pictures, but right I'll try and find it.
39:07
Speaker 1: Incent it to you. Her name was Anica. Maybe you
39:09
Speaker 1: could search that way, Anica. That was an amazing listener
39:13
Speaker 1: mail and we appreciate it. Um, that does sound like
39:16
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. We need to go on the
39:19
Speaker 1: cowboy weekend with the black cowboy who wrote in and
39:22
Speaker 1: then go to the Titanic role play party, and then
39:26
Speaker 1: in between we'll like maybe cross the country and marry
39:29
Speaker 1: a few couples officiate at some weddings. That sounds great.
39:32
Speaker 1: I just found the email and sent it to you,
39:33
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at picture. That dog dressed up gets
39:35
Speaker 1: me every time. It's going to be the summer of
39:38
Speaker 1: stuff you should not chuck it. I still don't have
39:42
Speaker 1: a chuck. I don't know what's going on. Oh there
39:44
Speaker 1: it is. Uh. Do you have anything else to talk
39:46
Speaker 1: about while I look at these? No, let's just sign off. Okay, Um, well,
39:50
Speaker 1: since we're signing off, everybody, if you want to get
39:53
Speaker 1: in touch with us, you can send us an email
39:55
Speaker 1: like Anka did, Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom,
39:58
Speaker 1: and send it off to stuff pot cast at I
40:01
Speaker 1: Heart Radio doc Stuff you Should Know is a production
40:06
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
40:09
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
40:12
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H