Why did France’s black truffle — once produced in the thousands of tonnes — collapse to near-extinction in a century, and what does its revival reveal about the country’s relationship with luxury, landscape, and desire? Who are the truffle thieves stalking the oak groves of the Périgord with poisoned meatballs and stolen dogs? And why does a near-identical Chinese impostor, worth one-seventieth of the price, now threaten the French truffle industry from beneath the soil itself?
Join John and Patrick as they tell the story of the black diamond of the kitchen — the fraud, the cash markets, the criminal underworld, and the invisible biological invasion growing silently beneath the oaks of southern France…
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