00:00:05
Luxury cousins of the mushroom,
00:00:07
truffles are an indulgent food enjoyed across the world.
00:00:11
But these fragrant fungi will cost you.
00:00:13
In 2014, the world's largest white truffle was flown
00:00:17
to New York accompanied by a security guard
00:00:20
and sold at auction for $61,000.
00:00:23
Discovered in Italy, this gigantic fungus
00:00:26
weighed almost 2 kilos.
00:00:28
So, what is it that makes them so expensive?
00:00:36
There are a lot of types of truffle.
00:00:39
There are at least 40 species, many of which aren't edible,
00:00:42
and new species have been discovered as recently as 2018.
00:00:46
You've probably seen luxury truffle products
00:00:48
in supermarkets or fancy restaurants,
00:00:51
but the unique truffle flavor you recognize
00:00:53
might not be real truffle at all.
00:00:56
Cheap truffle oil often hasn't been
00:00:57
anywhere near a real truffle.
00:00:59
Many cheaper truffle products use 2,4-dithiapentane,
00:01:03
a synthesized compound containing one
00:01:06
of the main aromatic components of foot odor,
00:01:09
guaranteed to give it that "earthy" taste.
00:01:12
Real truffles are seasonal and pricey,
00:01:14
with a short shelf life.
00:01:16
They were originally sniffed out using truffle pigs,
00:01:19
but while pigs are very good at finding truffles,
00:01:21
they're also very good at eating them, too.
00:01:23
And these days, dogs are much more common
00:01:25
truffle-hunting companions.
00:01:27
These fungi can be found across the world,
00:01:30
but they all require a very specific climate to grow.
00:01:34
While different varieties may have
00:01:35
somewhat different requirements, one thing is certain.
00:01:39
You can't have truffles without trees.
00:01:41
James Feaver: Truffles are always found with trees,
00:01:43
and they have to be the right type of trees.
00:01:45
Under the ground, the truffle is just the fruiting body,
00:01:50
so an equivalent to an apple.
00:01:52
And we've also got a lot of then what we call
00:01:54
the mycelium, microscopic-level threads,
00:01:56
and up to 100 meters in a teaspoon of soil.
00:02:00
And this mycelium is actually attached to the roots
00:02:03
of a tree like the fingers of glove onto a hand.
00:02:06
And it sort of extends the reach of the tree out.
00:02:09
And it actually takes up water and nutrients
00:02:12
and passes them to the tree, and the tree gives it sugars
00:02:15
in return, so to help the truffles, the fruit, develop.
00:02:19
Narrator: Even when you have exactly the right conditions,
00:02:21
truffles aren't guaranteed,
00:02:23
and hunting them is a labor-intensive process.
00:02:26
Once you know where to look, you have to sniff out
00:02:29
and dig up each truffle by hand,
00:02:31
and they can be tricky to find.
00:02:36
Feaver: Good boy, thank you, good boy, come!
00:02:40
So he just told us there it's still in the ground.
00:02:42
So do I want to take it out of the ground or not?
00:02:45
It all depends on if it's ripe.
00:02:47
If it's unripe, there's no point in having it.
00:02:50
So the nose comes into play.
00:02:52
And we actually sniff the ground for it.
00:03:02
Narrator: It may take a while,
00:03:04
but finding a good one can make it worth the work.
00:03:08
Feaver: Yeah, that's a nice one.
00:03:11
Yeah, that's probably about
00:03:15
70, 80 grams.
00:03:18
Narrator: Truffles also have a short season,
00:03:20
often appearing for only a few months of the year.
00:03:23
And even when you do get your hands on them,
00:03:25
they don't last for long.
00:03:28
Feaver: An unripe truffle, unlike a tomato,
00:03:31
which you could cut from the vine
00:03:33
and ripen on your windowsill,
00:03:35
once the truffle is out of the ground, the clock is ticking.
00:03:38
So it's just sort of slowly gonna degrade over time.
00:03:41
So we want to get it out to the customers nice and fast.
00:03:45
Narrator: After just five days out of the ground,
00:03:47
that pungent truffle smell will have halved.
00:03:50
You can farm many truffle varieties,
00:03:53
besides the rare Italian whites.
00:03:55
Many people have been successful
00:03:57
in setting up truffle orchards, but it's not easy.
00:04:01
Trees need to be planted in the right soil conditions,
00:04:03
inoculated with truffle fungus,
00:04:05
and often irrigated constantly.
00:04:08
It can take as long as six years
00:04:09
before you get a good truffle harvest,
00:04:11
and there's no guarantee that the fungi will grow at all.
00:04:15
So after all that effort, what do they actually taste like?
00:04:19
Ju Shardlow: Ooh.
00:04:21
Claudia Romeo: Hm.
00:04:23
Leon Siciliano: The smell just made me think
00:04:25
it was gonna be really strong.
00:04:27
The flavor is actually quite subtle.
00:04:29
There's a nuttiness there.
00:04:31
There's, like, an earthy flavor there.
00:04:34
Ju: Actually quite light and fragrant.
00:04:36
It tastes a lot nicer than it smells.
00:04:38
It smells like damp socks.
00:04:41
Claudia: That's good.
00:04:42
I mean, this is the first time I've actually eaten
00:04:43
a truffle by itself.
00:04:45
You know, it's a bit like mushroom,
00:04:46
but it's more of a meaty, meaty bite.
00:04:51
Narrator: These days, farming has taken over
00:04:53
as our primary source of truffles,
00:04:55
and today, 70% of the world's truffles are cultivated.
00:04:59
Through the loss of woodland and climate change,
00:05:01
the number of wild truffles has decreased significantly.
00:05:04
Since the 19th century, production in France has fallen
00:05:07
from over 1,000 tonnes a season to just 30 tonnes.
00:05:11
And climate change could mean that truffles will disappear
00:05:14
altogether in the future.
00:05:16
Feaver: The weather conditions are so important,
00:05:17
not just immediately, over the whole season.
00:05:20
We're getting much lower numbers
00:05:23
and much lower average size.
00:05:24
A truffle is about 70% water,
00:05:26
so it needs rainfall to help it grow.
00:05:28
Some UK truffle scientists are thinking
00:05:31
that your traditional areas,
00:05:34
the climate is gonna move further north,
00:05:36
and they're not gonna have a truffle industry
00:05:38
within I think perhaps 50 years.
00:05:41
There's threats, there's opportunities,
00:05:42
but rain, we do need rain.
00:05:44
When we get a dry summer,
00:05:46
the holidaymakers, they're delighted,
00:05:47
but I keep crossing my fingers
00:05:49
for a bit of rain every now and again.
