| Visit Alba in October and you'll be just in time for | | | | truffle grows in symbiosis with trees. The fungus |
| the local truffle festival. The streets will be packed | | | | covers the roots of the tree and feeds off |
| with vendors, and the air thick with the scent of | | | | carbohydrates produced by its host. In return the |
| this delicious, edible fungus. Every restaurant in | | | | fungus helps the tree absorb vital minerals from |
| town will feature it's best truffle dish. Witnessing | | | | the soil. The truffle is actually the fruit of the |
| such a scene you would never guess at the | | | | fungus. Just as an apple is the fruit of the apple |
| relative scarcity of the truffle. | | | | tree. Usually the host is an oak or a willow, but no |
| Every year farmers head out in the dead of night. | | | | one can figure out exactly what causes the |
| They take their truffle sniffing pigs or dogs and | | | | fungus to take hold. |
| steal off to the fields. The location of a truffle | | | | Natural growths of the delicacy have been greatly |
| crop is normally a very closely guarded secret. | | | | depleted by deforestation and environmental |
| Poaching is a genuine problem, and with good | | | | concerns like pollution and global warming. The |
| reason. A harvest of black market truffles could | | | | yearly truffle harvest is less than a quarter of |
| make a poacher wealthy and it could bankrupt | | | | what it was a hundred years ago and it gets a |
| the farmer. You see, ounce for ounce truffles are | | | | little smaller every year. Scientists and farmers |
| the most expensive natural food in the world. It's | | | | have tried in vain to reproduce the conditions |
| not at all unusual for this fungus to sell for as | | | | necessary to propagate the truffle but to date no |
| much as $250 dollars an ounce. According to | | | | one has succeeded. |
| Wikipedia the most expensive truffle of all was | | | | If you have a yen to try truffle now is as good a |
| sold at auction for $330,000 dollars. As such there | | | | time as any. The harvest is getting smaller, and |
| are some very strict laws regarding the harvest | | | | prices are getting higher. In fact, there's some |
| and sale of this prized edible. A truffle thief could | | | | fear that the truffle might dwindle off into |
| end up in jail. | | | | extinction. |
| The cost of the truffle is due to it's scarcity. The | | | | |