Truffles: The Most Expensive Food in the World

just a couple of shavings of black truffles from France known as black diamonds can cost hundreds of dollars in a restaurant in Paris white truffles from Italy can cost more than three times as much truffles are a fancy delicious delicacy some say an aphrodisiac and ounce per ounce the most expensive food in the world if you go to France and Italy as we did you learn quickly that truffles are under siege because they're becoming scarce they're being trafficked like drugs stolen by thugs and threatened by inferior imports from China the story will continue in a moment he found one already where where where where he found one oh my god Oh spell it in the beautiful Italian province of Perugia truffle hunters roamed the frosty hills with their trained dogs who sniff out these lumpy mushrooms when they're ripe one at a time as they have for centuries Wow truffles grow wild underground usually at the base of an oak tree they used to use pigs but they ate the truffles very rich American people they only see truffles on the table of a very elegant restaurant they don't see this now you know why they are expensive right Olga Urbani may be the only person in the world who goes truffle hunting in a full-length fur coat and a Caribbean tan but in the truffle business she can pretty much do what she wants Oh her company Urbani controls 70% of the world's truffle trade when you find a truffles is like to have a miracle another one other countries including the US have tried cultivating truffles the only limited success it's the combination of European red soil and rainy summers to produce an especially rich earthy flavor the price these truffles command make hunters act like they're mining for gold so this is $1,000 just right there's $1,000 and it's why the hunters value their dogs more than just about anything I really love my wife but the dog these truffles will go right to the Urbani factory where they're washed sorted and either frozen or canned or flown fresh to fancy restaurants like New York's DB Bistro mode Aaron home of the hundred fifty dollar hamburger smothered with truffles a few shavings on pasta can run you even more at an auction in Macau in 2010 this two pound white truffle so for $330,000 a record amount it's not like agriculture people don't put a seed in the ground and they're a fungus there's their underground fungus the farmer really can't make it happen you know they can do anything we can't do anything you're always on the phone many telephone saying sorry sorry I don't have I don't have and I wish I had a 100 tons a day to make everybody happy in France the truffle is so revered that in the village of oozes a special mass is held in its honor church goers not only put money in the collection plate they also add truffles there's a reason for the special prayers because of climate change the harvests are down from an annual haul of 2,000 tonnes of truffles a hundred years ago to just 30 tonnes today the scarcity and high prices of attracted elements of organized crime who've turned the truffle trade into something resembling the drug trade yeah the Pope really did that the reality is behind the popularity of the truffle lies a dangerous world my house and these bureaus one of Europe's most famous truffle connoisseurs is the larger-than-life French chef and restauranteur known simply as Bruno is it like the Mafia yes really it's good a good day well explains very difficult explicate better because very dangerous for me at Bruno's restaurant in the heart of Provence wealthy Europeans in Paris and Monaco just to eat lunch Bruno goes through about five tons of truffles a year which is chefs shave on everything from potatoes to this amazing lobster dish but Bruno says the growing black market has led to people coming to his place not just to eat truffles but to steal them the robbers came and got your truffles yes they stole 200 kilos of truffles 200 kilos from you they didn't steal my money they stole my truffles some of the stolen truffles we were told are brought to markets like this one in Rijo Raj where middlemen sell out of the backs of cars or trucks but large quantities change hands in back alleys we witness this transaction where the buyers and sellers wanted their identities hidden living in less than a minute fifty pounds of truffles were exchanged for thirty thousand euros about forty thousand dollars with no questions asked about where the truffles came from there's a problem of confidentiality and secrecy and that encourages a mafia like attitude Michele tournay a third-generation truffle farmer says that local truckers have been carjacked beaten with baseball bats and even killed thieves came and stole his troubles his trees and worse his dogs when they took your dogs what did you do Jerusha don't applaud I looked for them all over Europe I found a world I didn't know about who knew Seba because if I mean it's a world that's rotten to the core did you find your dog's never but it's not criminals or climate change that worried the truffle is the most it's China for years Chinese farmers use truffles as feed for their pigs that was until a businessman supposedly said the hell with the pigs let's feed the French even if the taste of a Chinese truffle leaves something to be desired let's talk about the Chinese truffle that does coffee catastrophic at fifteen one summer William the Chinese truffle is worthless by de buffer no buffer no perfume you couldn't smell food nothing why is your mom by du gu no taste no fire and took it out of the ground it would still wouldn't taste as good no it's like eating wood she says that's because of the way truffles in China are farmed unlike in France where dogs smell when a truffle is ripe a Chinese break at the earth with no dogs as a CBS news producer in China discovered and harvest the truffles the minute they find them which explains why while the two truffles look the same the price is drastically different prices of winter truffles is about $1,000 a pound a pound of Chinese maybe 20 $30 there are many people bad people who makes them so maybe they put a 30 percent of Chinese 70% I think you won't see it on the day we were at the Urbani factory sorters found a number of Chinese truffles and mixed in with that day's purchases they were separated out into specially marked red baskets more and more Chinese truffles are slipped in with the good French or Italian strains experts say it's like cutting flour into cocaine but but your own farmers around here or your own middlemen are putting the Chinese in with your truffles you're telling us you have to be on guard I'm from the Chinese but from your own people yeah and then you're selling them food importers and middlemen are bringing 28 tons of Chinese truffles into France a year and many are being passed off as the real thing in some French restaurants Michel Tornai says he's brought home some slices from his dinners out a gala and studied them under a microscope in his lab at home to check their origins it does look different Tornai has tried to blow the whistle on the restaurants that sell Chinese truffles at French prices but the police have more important matters on their plate and rarely do anything about it 28 tons of Chinese truffles come into France every year where did they go what I think I know where they go but I'm not going to tell you or did I pop if you tell me you're in trouble is what you're saying they'll hurt you everybody isn't danger in this business so we began to look for Chinese truffles ourselves we found this product that is exported to the US on the front of the can it says black winter truffles product of France while on the back in small print it says tuber in de comes the Latin name for Chinese truffles when we showed one of the cans to the ER bonney's at a kitchen at their headquarters it seemed to ruin their lunch this makes us crazy this destroys all the tradition of the truffle it's an entire life that goes in the garbage American law doesn't require a distinction between varieties of truffles and this product does sell for considerably less than the best of France but American consumers are being deceived into thinking they're getting the finest quality at a bargain price the owner of this brand is Pierre Jean pepper what this is your company right yes okay so we found this in the United States yes okay so this says black winter truffles yes but it's it's Chinese it's Chinese yes this is Dean it's a French brother it refers if I put a certified Mexican in China it's a Chinese truffles I'm stunned he was saying that since the truffles are packaged here he can legally write product of France on the label it feels like I'm being tricked into thinking I'm buying French truffles you know yes and there's another problem spores from the Chinese truffles are infecting the European soil and taking it over the way the kudzu weed has taken over parts of our own southeast it began to happen in Italy so the Italians made importing Chinese truffles illegal and there's a move in France to do the same oh man down here they're putting into danger the crown jewel of French gastronomy cereal box you don't if one day by accident our plantation starts producing Chinese truffles way more we are dead the great fear from michelle Tornai and the other truffle errs in France is that the Chinese will do to their precious delicacy what they have done to Louis Vuitton bags produce a knockoff that looks the same but is of lower quality but in this case it could just put them out of business

Channel: CBS News

Views: 8,858,457

Keywords: truffle, expensive, food, luxury, cooking, school, black, market, emerge, money, cbs, 60 minutes

Id: JUVcxa-wGcE

Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 09 2012