Monday, July 2, 2012

"60 Minutes" On Truffle-Related Crime

The CBS program 60 Minutes aired THIS 12 minute segment yesterday about truffle-related crime, because truffles are, "pound-for-pound the most expensive food in the world."

"Because of climate change, the harvests are down, from 2,000 tons 100 years ago, to just 30 tons today.  The scarcity and high prices have attracted elements of organized crime, who have turned the truffle trade into something resembling the drug trade."

The show goes on to analyze the "catastrophic problem" (for the French anyway) of Chinese truffles. Interestingly, Chinese truffles are apparently inferior to French ones ("no parfum") because the French use truffle-hunting dogs to find them, whereas the Chinese, "just pick at the earth with no dogs, and harvest the truffles the minute they find them."

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