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The Mystique, Money and Madness of Truffles | Jane Black
•Restaurant Guys•Episode 228
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8:48
This is a Vintage episode from 2006.
You’re hearing a preview of this subscriber bonus episode. Restaurant Guys’ Regulars can hear the full episode, plus other commercial-free bonus episodes, at restaurantguysregulars.buzzsprout.com .
Why This Episode Matters
Why one of the world's most prized ingredients commands extraordinary prices.
How truffle cultivation began challenging the romantic image of hunters searching the woods with trained dogs.
Why aroma, scarcity and spectacle are as important to the allure of truffles as flavor.
What happens when restaurants get their hands on thousands of dollars' worth of an ingredient that doesn't stay fresh for long.
Banter
Mark Pascal and Francis Schott begin with a tale of New Jersey lobster justice that makes Maine's system of informal fishing rules look positively genteel. A territorial dispute involving lobster pots somehow progresses to gunfire, arson and a neighboring boat unfortunately parked in the wrong slip.
Then, reports of people eating, and even cooking and driving, while asleep lead Mark to identify the true indignity: consuming thousands of calories without even getting to remember the meal.
The Conversation
Food writer Jane Black joins Mark and Francis after traveling through Spain to report on the changing world of truffles.
The romantic picture is familiar: a hunter and his dog wandering through the woods in search of an elusive underground treasure. What Jane found instead were truffle orchards, inoculated trees and farmers trying to turn an unpredictable delicacy into a viable agricultural business.
They explore why truffles became so scarce and expensive, how a former peasant food became one of dining's ultimate luxury ingredients, and why their remarkable aroma may matter more than their actual taste. Jane and the Guys also get into the sensual reputation of truffles, the theater of shaving them tableside and the questionable proliferation of truffle oil.
Then come the cautionary tales: an enormously valuable white truffle purchased at a charity auction that was locked in a safe and allowed to rot, and Francis's considerably more personal horror story about a chef who received thousands of dollars' worth of beautiful fresh truffles—and immediately preserved them in oil.
2026 update: At the time of this conversation, successful cultivation of the prized Italian white truffle (Tuber magnatum) remained elusive. Researchers have since documented controlled production of the species in a French orchard.
Guest Bio
Jane Black is a food journalist who covers food, culture, politics and sustainability. At the time of this interview, she was food editor at Boston Magazine and had written for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, BusinessWeek and Newsweek International. She later became a staff writer at The Washington Post and co-host of the James Beard Award-winning podcast Pressure Cooker.
Timestamps
0:00 New Jersey vigilante lobster justice 4:35 Sleep eating, Ambien and forgotten calories 7:20 Jane Black enters the changing world of truffles 12:00 How truffles went from peasant food to luxury 15:00 Why truffles smell like sex—and why aroma matters 22:20 The $35,000 truffle disaster, Francis’s truffle tragedy and the future of cultivation
Info
Jane’s article on truffles
“Cultivating a Mystique,” The New York Times (2006)
Reach Out to The Guys! TheGuys@restaurantguyspodcast.com
Speaker 3
Hey, Francis. How are you?
Speaker 4
I'm pretty well. I'm pretty well.
Speaker 3
You're, you're laughing 'cause you know we're gonna talk about a little New Jersey honor today.
Speaker 4
Oh, my. We... New Jersey sometimes- deserves its reputation. I'm a Jersey boy through and through, but, and so are you, Mr. Nutley. But, um-
Speaker 3
Francis, do you remember a while back, we had on a gentleman by the name of Bob Bayer.
Speaker 4
Yeah, civilized gentleman.
Speaker 3
Yes. Very nice. Very, very civilized from the Maine Lobster Institute. Oh, yes. He's the director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine.
Speaker 4
Yeah, the main fishing grounds of some of the most sustainable, well-run, generations-long managed lobster- fisheries in the world
Speaker 3
Well, one of the things he talked about is, that the lobster industry has a little bit of what we call vigilante justice, that the rules are followed because the rules need to be followed, and everybody kind of respects each other's place, and you don't go dropping-
Speaker 4
You don't go rip up somebody's lobster pots and plant your own there
Speaker 3
and plant your own. You don't even put your own too close to someone else's. It's-
Speaker 4
People stake out a territory more or less, and it goes from generation to generation. And people are very respectful, and if you wanna get into the lobster business, you go and you work for a lobsterman for a couple of years- Mm-hmm And it's made for one of the most productive and profitable and sustainable lobster fisheries anywhere in the world. and then we have the Jersey version. Let me read, let me read to you from the Star-Ledger, uh, by Marianne Spano. "A lobster boat captain was indicted yesterday on charges he set fire to a competitor's boat"
Speaker 3
That's right. That reads set fire.
Speaker 4
In a long-running feud that has landed both men in trouble. Richard Von Salisbury, 40, of Point Pleasant, was charged with," doesn't sound very pleasant to me, "was charged with two counts of arson, tampering with evidence, hindering apprehension, and obstructing justice,'
Speaker 3
so he's mad- so he lit the other guy's boat on fire. No, no, no.
Speaker 4
Keep
Speaker 3
going, Francis.
Speaker 4
Van Salisbury-
Speaker 3
Keep
Speaker 4
going Van Salisbury is accused of setting fire to the 38-foot lobster boat, Baby Doll, owned by... It's all so Jersey, isn't it? We are in New Jersey. I celebrate my place of origin. Okay. owned by Joseph Horvath while it was docked at a marina For that blaze, Van Salisbury was charged with aggravated arson, a second-degree offense that carries a penalty up to 10 years. The fire unfortunately spread to the boat next to it, Wacker's Toy." It
Speaker 3
did not. That's not a real boat name.
Speaker 4
Yeah, Wacker's Toy is a 35-foot, uh- lobster boat in the adjacent slip. This is how we get rid of competition in New Jersey. The fire occurred, but this is not totally innocent, the fire occurred a month after Von Salisbury and his brother Thomas on their lobster boat, Heather Anne, were involved in a shootout at sea with Horvath over lobster fishing territory. In other words, these two boats are out at sea, and they're making passes at each other, shooting at each other.
Speaker 3
Let me see if we c- if we can totally clarify what's happened here. Okay, one guy has decided that you're poaching his lobster traps. So what he does is-
Speaker 4
Gets a gun
Speaker 3
he gets a gun and starts shooting at you because, uh... there's a little vigilante justice here. We've gone a little past that. So one guy shoots at the other guy, hits him, okay? Actually shoots
Speaker 4
him. Yeah, let me give you this. Thomas Von Salisbury was hit in the leg, arm and hand. Horvath, 64, of Howell Township, pleaded guilty last May to illegal possession of a weapon and was sentenced to four years probation.
Speaker 3
It's the bullets that he should've been convicted of. Okay. So-
Speaker 4
Oh
Speaker 3
so one guy shoots the other guy for poaching his lobster traps.
Speaker 4
But then the guy gets convicted.
Speaker 3
So the guy g- the guy who shoots him gets convicted, gets probation, and so the first guy decides, "Not good enough. I am not satisfied with... You shot me 'cause I was poaching your lobster traps. I'm not satisfied. I say my lobster traps belong there, so I'm gonna light your boat on fire." Light your boat on
Speaker 4
fire.
Speaker 3
And if somebody else's boat catches on fire, hey, that's the way it goes.
Speaker 4
It's, uh-
Speaker 3
You don't, you don't dock your boat next to one of these guys, okay?
Speaker 4
You don't, you don't have to be very careful-
Speaker 3
Forget about it
Speaker 4
here in New Jersey. All right, that's crazy. Welcome to Jersey.
Speaker 3
So vigilante- You gotta- lobster justice- be very careful there it is
Speaker 4
very careful out there. Happy
Speaker 3
New Jersey.
Speaker 4
Next topic in the news, I mean, a lot of people have been talking about this, but it really is food related, and I-
Speaker 3
This has been all over the place.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Study links Ambien to unconscious food forays. It seems as though this, this sleeping pill Ambien unlocks a primitive desire to eat in some patients. it can make you consume calories ranging into the thousands, and you can do it all while still asleep. Here, let me read you this. a woman in Salinas, California, whose case is to be included in the Minnesota study, a lot of people are reporting this, but here's just one case. She said she'd awaken to find candy bar wrappers next to her bed and popsicle sticks on the floor near the refrigerator. She blamed her husband and sons before- finally pleading their claims that she was eating at night, like a zombie.
Speaker 3
I gotta try, I gotta try this tactic.
Speaker 4
Yeah, right. The whole- Yeah, it's good "I don't know how it happened." Sanofi Aventis, the French company that makes the drug, has defended the safety in its 13 years of use in the United States. A company spokeswoman, Melissa Feldman, said that the package insert for Ambien warns that sleep-related ea- eating disorder may occur. Okay, shut up
Speaker 3
Let me tell you okay, this woman, Brenda Pobry, 54. Despite seeing several doctors, Ms. Pobry did not link Ambien to her, her nocturnal eating until after she gained 100 pounds. If I gain 100 pounds from eating, I better remember it. Yeah,
Speaker 4
yeah.
Speaker 3
Okay? Um- I'm gonna be really, really, really ticked off if I gain 100 pounds from eating and I don't get to remember eating all the food.
Speaker 4
People get up and cook. people are waking up to find their ovens on and the oven door open- Mm-hmm and stuff. You know, that's, that's dangerous stuff.
Speaker 3
Well, the sleep driving too. Yeah. That's, that's another thing that, that, that's, that seems to be a problem.
Speaker 4
in some instances they're just driving into poles, and in some instances the police are reporting, They pull someone over, they're incoherent-
Speaker 3
Mm-hmm
Speaker 4
and they bring them down to the station and then they wake up at the police sergeant's desk and they say, "Huh? Where am I?" Last thing I remember, I went to bed." And the police sergeant says, "I, I just pulled you over and drove you down to the police station." and you're wearing one shoe, sir. And,
Speaker 3
Is that, is that
Speaker 4
a nightcap? And, and you, and then that's a bag of Doritos you got with you. I'm not taking Ambien,
Speaker 3
man. Not so. I can sleep as much as I want on
Speaker 4
I dated somebody once who was a sleepwalker. Mm-hmm. Scariest thing in the world. a couple of times she headed for the door. I'm like, "No, no." "No, no, no, no. You're not going out that door."
Speaker 3
That's, that's outside.
Speaker 4
And that wasn't drugs or anything. It was just- Mm-hmm and it's just something she always said. Like, sometimes she would go to bed and then wake up under the dining room table. I, I'd
Speaker 3
rather wake up under the dining room table-
Speaker 4
Than in the
Speaker 3
yard than have eaten 3,000 calories of food- that I don't know about.
Speaker 4
Or wake up in the yard. Anyway, when we come back, we're gonna be talking to Jane Black. She's the editor of Boston Magazine, and she's written a great article for The New York Times on truffles. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys,
Our guest today is Jane Black. Jane is a-
Speaker 4
food writer who's written for publications like The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, Business Week, Newsweek International, and she's the food editor at Boston Magazine. Jane, welcome to the show.
Speaker 5
Thanks so much.
Speaker 3
Hi, Jane. How are you today?
Speaker 5
Great.
Speaker 4
we really like your writing we know you from Boston Magazine, where our friend Anthony Giglio is the wine writer- Yes of course. Um, but you wrote a piece, in New York Times on truffles that I, I thought was really fabulous, and so we asked you to come on primarily to talk about that. What, whatever... What prompted you to write about truffles?
Speaker 5
Well, I went to Spain in December, and, I actually went, on a story about two people, um, who are from Boston, are actually from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but grew up around Boston, and, you know, made some money in the dot-com boom and decided they wanted a second career and decided what they wanted to do was get into the truffle trade, which is a, a tough business, as it turns out. That
