1 00:00:00,089 --> 00:00:01,560 Good evening, welcome to my restaurant. 2 00:00:01,560 --> 00:00:04,810 I’ll be your server tonight—do you have any questions about the menu? 3 00:00:04,810 --> 00:00:06,690 Oh, you wanna know where the truffles come from? 4 00:00:06,690 --> 00:00:08,760 I see you’ve heard about our specials. 5 00:00:08,760 --> 00:00:12,440 This is the stinky little fungus we’re gonna shave over your stock footage pasta, and he’s 6 00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:16,880 a miracle of logistics: proof that human beings can always find a way to get something from 7 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:18,990 point A to point B… for the right price. 8 00:00:18,990 --> 00:00:23,310 A day and a half ago, Tom the White Truffle was about a forearm deep under some forest 9 00:00:23,310 --> 00:00:28,550 in Italy, and now—thanks to a complex system involving many people, dogs, and federal agencies—it’s 10 00:00:28,550 --> 00:00:30,130 on your plate in New York City. 11 00:00:30,130 --> 00:00:31,130 Is it worth it? 12 00:00:31,130 --> 00:00:32,720 That’s not for me to say. 13 00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:35,740 But it’s logistics, and that’s very “for me to say.” 14 00:00:35,740 --> 00:00:37,870 So what are these things? 15 00:00:37,870 --> 00:00:41,470 Basically, mushrooms, but tastier, and with a bunch of added logistical problems. 16 00:00:41,470 --> 00:00:45,399 The first being that unlike other mushrooms, you can’t just farm them by spreading spores 17 00:00:45,399 --> 00:00:46,450 on some dead stuff. 18 00:00:46,450 --> 00:00:50,870 Truffles develop in symbiosis with living trees, doing a botanical version of the post-trick-or-treating 19 00:00:50,870 --> 00:00:55,620 candy swap where instead of going Kit-Kats for Reese’s, they trade nitrogen for glucose. 20 00:00:55,620 --> 00:01:00,310 They form on the roots of oak, beech, poplar and other hardwood trees… sometimes. 21 00:01:00,310 --> 00:01:04,199 Whether they show up depends on a bunch of stuff, like soil pH and rainfall, both of 22 00:01:04,199 --> 00:01:08,299 which need to be high for there to be a chance at truffle formation, but it’s still not 23 00:01:08,299 --> 00:01:09,299 a guarantee. 24 00:01:09,299 --> 00:01:12,680 So different species range from “difficult” to commercially cultivate up to, in the case 25 00:01:12,680 --> 00:01:15,060 of the white truffle, “never been done.” 26 00:01:15,060 --> 00:01:18,570 That means if you want a taste of Tom Truffle, you gotta find him in the wild. 27 00:01:18,570 --> 00:01:22,900 Which is tough, because unlike other mushrooms, truffles grow underground: one of the hardest 28 00:01:22,900 --> 00:01:24,170 places to find stuff. 29 00:01:24,170 --> 00:01:25,430 Don’t believe me? 30 00:01:25,430 --> 00:01:27,090 Ask the body I hid in Acadia. 31 00:01:27,090 --> 00:01:30,430 For a while, people trained pigs to sniff out truffles, but while the pigs excelled 32 00:01:30,430 --> 00:01:34,369 at finding them, they also excelled at eating them, which kinda defeated the whole purpose. 33 00:01:34,369 --> 00:01:38,520 Nowadays, the standard is dogs, who you can train to smell a truffle from 100 feet or 34 00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:42,310 30 meters away, but who would rather eat the treat you give them than the truffle itself. 35 00:01:42,310 --> 00:01:45,650 These dogs are worth thousands of dollars each, not that most truffle hunters would 36 00:01:45,650 --> 00:01:49,610 consider selling a good one... some, however, would poison or kidnap the competition’s 37 00:01:49,610 --> 00:01:50,720 if it would even the playing field. 38 00:01:50,720 --> 00:01:54,710 When a truffle dog finds Tom Truffle, its owner will dig him up with either this thing 39 00:01:54,710 --> 00:01:58,840 or their bare hands—anything else risks damaging his little truffle self. 40 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:01,840 So now Tom’s out of the ground and the clock is ticking. 41 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:06,420 Truffles are 72% water, and they lose 5% of their body mass per day to evaporation. 42 00:02:06,420 --> 00:02:10,840 And don’t try fighting this by storing them in a moist environment, they’ll rot. 43 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:15,090 Even with the best possible storage, Tom’ll lose half of his distinct white-truffly scent 44 00:02:15,090 --> 00:02:18,560 in five days, and he’ll be totally rotten in seven to ten. 45 00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:22,970 So if you wanna sell him to some fancy-pants in New York, it’s time to get a move on. 46 00:02:22,970 --> 00:02:26,410 Tom grew in this part of Italy—that’s where Italian white truffles come from. 47 00:02:26,410 --> 00:02:30,590 But that’s assuming he actually is an Italian white truffle, which is a big assumption. 48 00:02:30,590 --> 00:02:35,250 See, despite what the streets say, white truffles also grow perfectly well in all these places, 49 00:02:35,250 --> 00:02:38,879 but people are less enchanted by the Balkans than Italy, so loads of white truffles from, 50 00:02:38,879 --> 00:02:43,760 say, Serbia get sold as Italian ones every season which, sure, is fraud, but more importantly: 51 00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:44,760 who cares? 52 00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:47,950 It’s the same product, people just need to learn to romanticize Serbia. 53 00:02:47,950 --> 00:02:52,040 So we’ll go ahead and say Tom’s from “outside Alba,” even if it’s this far outside. 54 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:55,560 The truffle hunter who dug him up will then sell him and any other truffs he spotted that 55 00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:59,590 day to a broker, one of a handful of companies that stock up from hundreds or thousands of 56 00:02:59,590 --> 00:03:02,019 hunters and then sell directly to restaurants. 57 00:03:02,019 --> 00:03:05,580 Tom gets sold to a broker in New York, so he’s on an overnight flight to JFK. 58 00:03:05,580 --> 00:03:09,110 In the morning, someone from the company is waiting at Air Cargo to pick him up because 59 00:03:09,110 --> 00:03:13,260 going through delivery middlemen would add unnecessary time and increase rot risk. 60 00:03:13,260 --> 00:03:16,010 Also, our truffle distributor is just a really nice friend. 61 00:03:16,010 --> 00:03:20,660 Before he’s released to the broker, Tom undergoes inspection from four different agencies: 62 00:03:20,660 --> 00:03:24,020 the FDA, the USDA, Customs, and Homeland Security. 63 00:03:24,020 --> 00:03:27,800 Any one of them can throw him out, along with every other truffle in his box, if they see 64 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:32,060 something that could threaten American safety—like an invasive bug, a non-invasive bug that looks 65 00:03:32,060 --> 00:03:35,630 like an invasive bug, too much foreign dirt, or a full-on bomb. 66 00:03:35,630 --> 00:03:39,070 If that happens, it’s all to the trash and the broker is out a bunch of money. 67 00:03:39,070 --> 00:03:43,390 But lucky for us, Tom passes with flying colors and now it’s into the broker’s van and 68 00:03:43,390 --> 00:03:46,710 off to my restaurant, where I buy him out of the trunk for some exorbitant amount of 69 00:03:46,710 --> 00:03:47,710 money. 70 00:03:47,710 --> 00:03:51,500 And I do mean exorbitant: from September to December, when they’re growing, white truffles 71 00:03:51,500 --> 00:03:55,569 fetch as much as four thousand dollars a pound, or eighteen hundred dollars a kilo. 72 00:03:55,569 --> 00:03:58,470 So I hand the broker a stack of cash, and Tom’s mine. 73 00:03:58,470 --> 00:04:02,360 I wrap my golden stinkball in a dry paper towel, put him in a sealed container, and 74 00:04:02,360 --> 00:04:04,900 pop him in the fridge to ensure he survives to dinnertime. 75 00:04:04,900 --> 00:04:08,689 And once dinnertime comes around, I’ll shave about 5 grams of him onto your pasta—an 76 00:04:08,689 --> 00:04:13,310 amount as heavy as a nickel but for which I paid about 44 dollars. 77 00:04:13,310 --> 00:04:14,310 Was it worth it? 78 00:04:14,310 --> 00:04:19,320 Absolutely, if I can get you to throw me 97 Washos for the musky scent of luxury. 79 00:04:19,320 --> 00:04:22,000 Because the world of truffles is a world of big money. 80 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,640 I’m talking $400 for an ounce if you want to order one for yourself. 81 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:31,060 I’m talking $10k for a 1.2 kilogram winter black truffle… sorry, let me be more specific: 82 00:04:31,060 --> 00:04:33,850 $10k for an NFT of a 1.2 kilogram winter black truffle. 83 00:04:33,850 --> 00:04:38,289 I’m talking $61k at Sotheby’s for this giant white truffle that, according to this 84 00:04:38,289 --> 00:04:42,200 book I made my writer read for this video, rotted before it got to its buyer. 85 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:44,699 So, after all that, is it worth it? 86 00:04:44,699 --> 00:04:45,699 No. 87 00:04:45,699 --> 00:04:48,320 Or, at least that’s what I told said writer when she asked to expense a Michelin-star 88 00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:49,840 meal to the company card. 89 00:04:49,840 --> 00:04:50,840 Nice try though! 90 00:04:50,840 --> 00:04:56,380 Here’s the thing: You don’t need a thousand-dollar fungus from the Serbian lowlands to have a 91 00:04:56,380 --> 00:04:57,390 fantastic meal. 92 00:04:57,390 --> 00:04:59,169 You actually don’t need anything… 93 00:04:59,169 --> 00:05:01,880 besides this video’s sponsor: Factor. 94 00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:05,880 Factor takes all the hassle out of cooking at home—literally, all of it. 95 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:09,500 The grocery run, the slicing, the cooking, the second grocery run because you didn’t 96 00:05:09,500 --> 00:05:11,490 realize you were low on oil… even the cleaning! 97 00:05:11,490 --> 00:05:16,539 That’s because with Factor, you get delicious, never-frozen, chef-prepared meals delivered 98 00:05:16,539 --> 00:05:20,440 right to your door that can be ready-to-eat in under two minutes. 99 00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:24,780 And I can personally attest to how tasty this stuff is—I’ve been a real-life happy customer 100 00:05:24,780 --> 00:05:29,139 of both Factor and their parent company, Hello Fresh, for years, eating delicious meals like 101 00:05:29,139 --> 00:05:32,069 this Peruvian Shrimp Bowl almost every night. 102 00:05:32,069 --> 00:05:35,640 And on those days where I don’t have time to cook a whole Hello Fresh box, I love that 103 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:39,240 Factor gives me a still-healthy, still-cheaper-than-takeout option. 104 00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:43,750 It’s really not that hard of a concept to explain—meals, that you choose, that are 105 00:05:43,750 --> 00:05:47,350 delicious, and healthy, and just show up on your doorstep and live in your fridge until 106 00:05:47,350 --> 00:05:49,130 you heat them up and eat. 107 00:05:49,130 --> 00:05:53,979 If you wanna give Factor a try, now is the perfect time, because if you head to FACTOR75.com 108 00:05:53,979 --> 00:05:59,130 or click the link below and use code HAI50, you’ll get 50% off your first Factor box, 109 00:05:59,130 --> 00:06:00,779 and you’ll be supporting this channel when you do.