The Truffle Underground
A Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and Manipulation in the Shadowy Market of the World's Most Expensive Fungus
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“The ultimate truffle true crime tale”*: A thrilling journey through the hidden underworld of the world's most prized luxury ingredient.
*Bianca Bosker, New York Times bestselling author of Cork Dork
Beneath the gloss of star chefs and crystal-laden tables, the truffle supply chain is touched by theft, secrecy, sabotage, and fraud. Farmers patrol their fields with rifles and fear losing trade secrets to spies. Hunters plant poisoned meatballs to eliminate rival truffle-hunting dogs. Naive buyers and even knowledgeable experts are duped by liars and counterfeits.
Deeply reported and elegantly written, this page-turning exposé documents the dark, sometimes deadly crimes at each level of the truffle’s path from ground to plate, making sense of an industry that traffics in scarcity, seduction, and cash. Through it all, a question lingers: What, other than money, draws people to these dirt-covered jewels?
Praise for The Truffle Underground
“Investigative journalist and first-time author Jacobs does a remarkable job reporting from the front lines of the truffle industry, bringing to vivid life French black-truffle farmers, Italian white-truffle foragers, and their marvelously well-trained dogs.”—Booklist (starred review)
“In The Truffle Underground, Ryan Jacobs presents a lively exposé of the truffle industry, reporting on the crimes that ‘haunt the whole supply chain.’ . . . Even if truffles are beyond your pay grade, there is plenty of enjoyment to be had in the sheer devilment portrayed in this informative and appetizing book.”—The Wall Street Journal
“You’ll never look at truffle fries the same way after reading this book. . . . You can practically smell the soil as you follow truffle farmers and bandits through the groves and fields of France and Italy where the fungi are harvested and stolen.”—Outside, “Five Favorite Summer Reads”
“[The] book is a rigorously reported, carefully written, endlessly interesting immersion in a high-stakes subculture.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Jacobs takes us on an eye-opening journey through the prized mushroom’s supply chain and the global black market for these tubers in this tale of theft, deceit, and high-stakes secrets.”—Real Simple
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Investigative reporter Jacobs, who writes for the Atlantic, digs deeply into the international truffle business in this fascinating work. Truffles are "revered as one of the finest, scarcest, and most valuable ingredients in fine dining," Jacobs writes. Traveling to France and Italy, where the most sought-after varieties grow, he found an under-regulated business of foragers and shady middlemen who sold the prized fungi to restaurants and distributors. Jacobs also uncovered a dangerous world of criminals who poison or steal other hunters' prized truffle sniffing dogs, and a French farmer willing to shoot and kill to protect the truffles that grow on his property. Jacobs interviews truffle experts such as American octogenarian Jim Trappe, a scientist who spent his life studying "mycorrhizae, the types of fungus that form in symbiosis with the roots of trees." The book culminates a case of corporate fraud in 2003 in a California court, against the world's biggest truffle company, Urbani U.S.A., which sold cans of Chinese truffles intentionally mislabeled as black truffles. This deeply researched and eye-opening account of the lengths people will go for wealth, gratification, and a taste of the prized fungus will captivate readers.