European white truffles can sell for as much
as $3,600 a pound, making them and their fellow fungi the most expensive food
in the world. One two-pound truffle recently sold for more than $300,000. All
of which has brought organized crime into the truffle trade, creating a black
market and leading to theft of both truffles as well as the highly valued
truffle-sniffing dogs. Add to that the influx of the inferior Chinese truffles
-- masquerading as their European cousins -- and you've got trouble with
truffles. Lesley Stahl reports.
The following is a script of "The Most
Expensive Food in the World" which aired on Jan. 8, 2012. Lesley Stahl is
the correspondent. Ira Rosen, producer.
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 for 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.
Lesley Stahl: He found one already? Where,
where, where? He found one? Oh my god. Oh, smell that.
In the beautiful Italian province of Perugia,
truffle hunters roam 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.
Stahl: Wow!
Truffles grow wild, underground, usually at
the base of an oak tree. They used to use pigs, but they ate the truffles.
Olga Urbani: 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. Her
company, Urbani, controls 70 percent of the world's truffle trade.
Urbani: When you find the truffles, it's like
to have a miracle.
Stahl: Another one!
Other countries, including the U.S. have
tried cultivating truffles, with only limited success. It's the combination of
European red soil and rainy summers that produce an especially rich, earthy
flavor. The price these truffles command makes hunters act like they're mining
for gold.
Stahl: So this is $1,000? Just right there is
$1,000...
And it's why the hunters value their dogs
more than just about anything!
Urbani (with farmers): He said, "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 Moderne, home of the $150
hamburger smothered with truffles. A few shavings on pasta can run you even
more. In 2010 at an auction in Macau, this two-pound white truffle sold for
$330,000, a record amount.
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