luxury cousins of the mushroom truffles
are an indulgent food enjoyed across the
world but these fragrant funghi will
cost you in 2014 the world's largest
white truffle was flown to New York
accompanied by a security guard and sold
at auction for 61 thousand dollars
discovered in Italy this gigantic fungus
weighed almost two kilos so what is it
that makes them so expensive there are a
lot of types of truffle there are at
least 40 species many of which aren't
edible and new species have been
discovered as recently as 2018 you've
probably seen luxury truffle products in
supermarkets or fancy restaurants but
the unique truffle flavor you recognise
might not be real truffle at all
cheap truffle oil often hasn't been
anywhere near a real truffle many
cheaper truffle products use two for dye
fire pentane a synthesized compound
containing one of the main aromatic
components of photo de guaranteed to
give it that earthy taste real truffles
are seasonal and pricey with a short
shelf life they were originally sniffed
out using truffle pigs
but while pigs are very good at finding
truffles they're also very good at
eating them too and these days dogs are
much more common truffle hunting
companions these funghi can be found
across the world but they all require a
very specific climate to grow while
different varieties may have somewhat
different requirements one thing is
certain you can't have truffles without
trees truffles are always found with
trees and they have to be the right type
of trees the under the ground the the
truffle is just the fruiting body so in
accordance of an apple and we've also
got a lot of then what we call the
mycelium microscopic level threads up to
a hundred meters in a teaspoon of soil
and these and this my scene was actually
attached to the roots of a tree like the
fingers on a glove onto a hand and it's
extends the reach of the tree out and it
actually takes that water anew
and partisan through the tree and the
tree gives a sugars in return so to help
the truffles the fruit develop even when
you have exactly the right conditions
truffles aren't guaranteed and hunting
them is a labor-intensive process once
you know where to look
you have to sniff out and dig up each
truffle by hand and they can be tricky
to find
so it's ptosis there it's still in the
ground so do I want to take it out of
the ground or not it all depends if it's
ripe with its unripe there's no point in
in having it so the notice comes into
play where it should sniff the ground
for it
it may take a while but finding a good
one could make it worth the work yeah
that's the nice one
yep that's probably up 70 80 grams
truffles also have a short season often
appearing for only a few months of the
year and even when you do get your hands
on them they don't last for long an
unripe truffle unlike a tomato which you
could cut from the vine and ripen on
your windowsill once the truffles out of
the ground the clock is ticking it sort
of sort of slow you're going to degrade
over time so we want to get that to
customers nice and fast after just five
days out of the ground that pungent
truffle smell will have halved you can
farm any truffle varieties
besides the rare Italian White's and
many people have been successful in
setting up truffle orchards but it's not
easy trees need to be planted in the
right soil conditions inoculated with
truffle fungus and often irrigated
constantly it can take as long as six
years before you get a good truffle
harvest and there's no guarantee that
the funghi will grow at all so after all
that effort what do they actually taste
like
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hmm the smell just made me think it was
gonna be really strong the flavor is
actually quite subtle there's a
nuttiness there there's there's like an
earthy flavor there she quite light and
fragrant it doesn't it tastes a lot
nicer than it smells it smells like damp
dogs that's good I mean this is the
first time I actually eat a truffle by
itself you know it's a bit like mushroom
but it's more of a meaty meaty bite
these days farming has taken over us our
primary source of truffles and today 70%
of the world's truffles are cultivated
through the loss of woodland and climate
change the number of wild truffles has
decreased significantly since the 19th
century production in France has fallen
from over 1,000 tonnes of season to just
30 tonnes and climate change could mean
that truffles would disappear altogether
in the future the weather conditions are
so important not just immediately over
the whole season we're getting you know
much lower numbers and much lower
average size at roughest not at 7% water
certainly its rainfall to help but grow
some UK truffle scientists are thinking
that your traditional areas the climate
is going to move forward the further
north and they're not going to have a
truffle industry within you know I think
perhaps 50 years there's threats there's
opportunities but rain we do need rain
when we get dry summer that the holiday
makes that delighted but I keep crossing
my fingers a bit of rain every now and
again
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you
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