La truffe noire

The perceived value of the truffle is so far removed from its real gastronomic value, so caught up in snobbery and fraud and glamour and hype, it was bound to give Tuber melanosporum a bad name. But the breathtakingly high prices charged for truffles (currently around 1,000 euros a kilo), can be better understood when one realises that truffle production is five hundred times lower than it was a hundred years ago and that current demand, even at that staggering price, is estimated as fifty times higher than supplies available.