French delicacy is rare and getting rarer, now $30 an ounce
(NEWSER) - Truffles have always been rare and expensive, prized in French cuisine for their earthy yet delicate flavor, whose richness, it is said, cannot be matched by another food. Yet destruction of the forests where the truffles grow (on oak roots), a scarcity of expert hunters, and a general decline in the population of Tuber Melanosporum—the black truffle, by its more mundane name—mean the fungus costs $30 an ounce, twice as much as a decade ago, reports Global Post in a feature on the delicacy. More»