Ryan Jacobs. - The Truffle Underground: A Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and Manipulation in the Shadowy Market of the World’s Most Expensive Fungus

Jacobs is an unstoppable and captivating guide through the dark underbelly of the worlds most glamorous fungus. This is the ultimate truffle true-crime tale.

BIANCA BOSKER,New York Times bestselling author of Cork Dork

It is totally unlikely that I will ever be a truffle hunter, but thanks to Ryan Jacobss thrilling book, I have experienced truffle sales no less shady than a parking lot drug deal, escaped bandits with my haul intact, witnessed truffle heists, and mastered the scientific mysteries of their growth. And best of all, as a reward for having (not at all) lived through such mayhem, I feel entitled to say to the waiter, Why, yes, I will add truffles to my pasta for [exorbitant amount of money].

ALEXIS COE, author of Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis

Holy hell, this is a good book. With prose that is often as seductive as the elusive fungus itself, The Truffle Underground transports the reader to an intoxicating world of aromatic forests and international intrigue. Its full of passion, promise, and danger, and as gripping as any HBO prestige drama. This impressively researched and beautifully written debut is a must-read for anyone interested in how our food makes its way to our plate from its origin in the wild world. I found myself reading it far into the night, thinking again and again just a few pages more.

SUMMER BRENNAN, author of The Oyster War

[A] fascinating work.This deeply researched and eye-opening account of the lengths people will go for wealth, gratification, and a taste of the prized fungus will captivate readers.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Investigative journalist and first-time author Jacobs does a remarkable job reporting from the frontlines of the truffle industry, bringing to vivid life French black-truffle farmers, Italian white-truffle foragers, and their marvelously well-trained dogs.

BOOKLIST

Fans of weird true crime will eat it up.

BUZZFEED

Copyright 2019 by Ryan Jacobs

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers,an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC,New York.

crownpublishing.com

clarksonpotter.com

CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is aregistered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Jacobs, Ryan McMahon, 1989 author.

Title: The truffle underground : a tale of mystery, mayhem, andmanipulation in the shadowy market of the worlds most expensive fungus / RyanJacobs.

Description: First edition. | New York : Clarkson Potter,[2019] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018053998 (print) | LCCN 2018055700 (ebook)| ISBN 9780451495709 (Ebook) | ISBN 9780451495693 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: TruffleindustryFranceHistory19th century. | TruffleindustryItalyHistory19th century. | Truffle culture. |Smuggling. | Black market.

Classification: LCC HD9235.T782 (ebook) | LCC HD9235.T782 F8332019 (print) | DDC 381/.4158dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018053998

ISBN9780451495693

Ebook ISBN9780451495709

Cover design by Ian Dingman

v5.4

ep

For Emily and Olive, who was born during revisions

CONTENTS

AUTHORS NOTE

All events, characters, and locations portrayed in this account arereal. No names have been changed, but some sources have been kept anonymous. Crimeand vice are difficult to observe firsthand, so all scenes at which I was notpresent are based upon extensive interviews with victims, law enforcement officials,or other sources with credible knowledge about how they occurred. Other relevantsource material is listed in the Notes section.

In a few instances, minor detailslost to history, sourcesmemories, or industry secrecyhave been supposed in a way that is consistentwith other available facts. This is especially applicable to sections that focus onthe early- and mid-nineteenth century, which are supported by contemporaneous butsparse accounts. These suppositions were considered carefully and always aim to getthe reader closer to the reality of what happened.

Much of my reporting was conducted through French and Italiantranslators. In favor of avoiding distraction, distinctions between interviewsconducted in English and those conducted in a foreign language were not made unlessthey were directly relevant to the story.

Where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad cancome from bad actions? Maybe sometimesthe wrong way is the right way?You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be? Or,spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turnsout to be right?

Boris, in Donna Tartts The Goldfinch (2013)

Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs,cruelty and decay.

Anthony Bourdain, in The New Yorker (1999)

PROLOGUE:

Threads of fungus swirl through the heat and dark of the rockysoil. They spend years twisting, extending, contorting, in perpetual search ofnutrients to bring back to their host tree. It took thirty years and a series ofimprobable incidents for the fungus to connect with the roots to begin with, and nowit will take even more luck for the colony burrowing through the dirt to find afungal mate.

But if it happens, an invisible knot will bubble up from thisfateful connection sometime in the spring: a primordium, a jumble of tissue that,under a microscope, resembles a ball of haphazardly assembled yarn. Over a fewweeks, the microscopic cells bulk into something more complex. Structuresmaterialize: Bits of skin come into focus; a maze of white veins unfurls, marbling ablack interior. Eventually, a miniature, immature truffle has formed. When the heatof the sun washes over the soil in the first days of summer, its cells fall into awarm slumber. At summers end, it rests, waiting for the hulking clouds of athunderstorm to swing in its direction.

One day in early autumn, lightning shoots into the forest canopies,and a smack of thunder rumbles over the forest floor. Rain falls. Droplets tricklefrom the leaves and seep into the soil, past the surface layer and into the rootzone. The cells of the fungus are jolted out of dormancy by the flood. Growth beginsanew.

One night in early winter, some signal of moisture, temperature, ormagic presses into the depth, and spores bloom in the truffles interior. Thedeveloped cells begin sucking water out of the soil like a vacuum, bloating thefruit to full maturity.

Then, and only then, is an edible, aromatic truffle born into itsdark soil.

But somewhere above, another underground awaits.