The Truffle Underground, Sponsored by How Stuff Works

Presented by WABE, Cooking/Food/Spirits Track

Ryan Jacobs' <i>The Truffle Underground</i> has all of the makings of the next compulsively readable food exposé, a deeply researched dive into the dark origins of the world’s most valuable fungus.

Beneath the glossy veneer of star chefs and crystal-laden tables, a hidden world of intrigue, sabotage, and crime undergirds the elegance of truffles: Feuding factions plant poisoned meatballs in competitors’ fields to eliminate rival truffle-hunting dogs. Crime syndicates steal research from the labs of scientists attempting to cultivate them, and unsuspecting foragers are held at gunpoint while bandits lift an entire month’s worth of income from their car trunks. Ryan Jacobs' The Truffle Underground has all of the makings of the next compulsively readable food exposé, a deeply researched dive into the dark origins of the world’s most valuable fungus—from the scientific mysteries of their growth to the story of the hapless French farmer who discovered the secret to cultivating them to brutal crimes in the forests and the white-collar crimes that surround this secretive industry. Through it all, a question lingers: What, other than money, draws people to these dirt-covered knobs?

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