The first time I saw truffles for sale, I thought, “MMkay. Where are they?”
I mean, I have heard they live underneath stuff.
So, were they hiding underneath that dirty kitty litter?
Wait… what? You mean those tiny turds were what I was going to spend the next month and a half’s worth of groceries on if I wanted any? Eff me. These fungi had better have psilocybin in them for that price – especially at that size. So when I got sent this little FYI about a truffle that looked like some kind of a cooked bird (both in appearance – but more importantly, in size), it was no surprise to me that it was being auctioned for some exorbitant price. Yet, I was somehow still floored when I heard the actual figure it ended up going for today:
$61,250.
As a poorslette, I’m having trouble imagining having that much money just sitting in my account at one time – much less having the financial freedom to spend on turning turd looking mushrooms into actual turds. I feel fancy when I spend the extra ten bucks on maitake and I feel lucky when the enoki make their way to my Wegmans. So what in the motherfluff do these truffles have in them that make them so highly coveted? I’m trying to understand, so I’ve taken to some swivel-chair travel (that’s my new term for “armchair travel” – at a laptop), to see what sorcery’s behind this mystery.
The answer is (partially) what you’d expect outta anything expensive: they’re uncommon.
They have a special season in most of the exotic locales they’re found (some of the better ones grow between late fall and early spring only). And since they grow symbiotically underground with these specific tree roots, they have to be sniffed out specially by dogs or lady pigs. I’d heard that before, but what I didn’t consider was what that meant – that you have to go through the trouble to specially train those dogs and pigs not to sample the goods themselves before they can make their way to Donald Trump to probably wipe his ass with (’cause why not). So that costs extra money, too. And doing the hunt takes time and an arduous amount of work.
The dude in the article I read discussed his experience in a restaurant while trying truffle – detailing how the waiter and the chef came out with a scale (just like a drug dealer, making sure you know you’re not getting screwed) and all. Then, he shaved off little paper thin slices of the thing onto homie’s meal. For a grand total of $100. In the end of this account, the writer (apparently a connoisseur) both posed the question “Is it worth it?” and answered it “yes” in a single breath. Right before saying that if you’re gonna eat this stuff, it goes best in pasta or in creamy scrambled eggs.
Are you effing kidding me?
If I ever out-poverish myself enough to afford this subterranean delicacy, I’mma savor every last experience of each deli-thin slice 100% unmitigated and plain. In a darkened room. With blinders. And noise cancelling headphones.
Till then, I’ll stick to my shitake in lieu of this overpriced cat shit.