Rich people like truffles, and so do people who want to make food seem like it’s for rich people, if the Food Network is anything to go on. But so do other, more likable populations, like pigs and French people at Christmas:
The prized mushrooms are used to stuff Christmas turkeys, chickens or capons, Mr. Manzanares said, making Dec. 24 typically the biggest truffle-eating night of the year in France.
So, of course, you know what’s coming. Soon enough, thanks to climate change, the humble truffle will be kaput.
Black truffles and other types of truffles are becoming scarcer, and some scientists say it is because of the effects of global climate change on the fungus’s Mediterranean habitat.
Of course, really REALLY rich people will still be OK, because what else is new.
One wholesaler says prices have risen tenfold over the last dozen years.
At Truffes Folies, in the chic Seventh Arrondissement of Paris, black truffles are selling for the equivalent of about 2,000 euros a kilogram, or more than $1,200 a pound — living up to their traditional nickname, “black diamonds.”
Personally, I’d rather get a new bike for Christmas, but to each his own.
