Dan Pashman: Hey, everyone, Dan here with the last Sporkful Reheat of 2024. And you know, it's the holiday season, but it's also truffle season. And I think about this Reheat all the time because I love truffles. I eat them maybe once a year, maybe even once every other year. Don't give me any truffle oil on your French fries. Okay? Like that's not actually truffles. It's, like, a synthetic compound, okay? Truffles are special. They're extremely expensive and that's why I only eat them, like, once a year or once every other year. And when I do it, I do it right. And at the same time, I think about this episode because we're going to dive into the musky, expensive, and surprisingly cutthroat world of truffle buying and selling. 

Dan Pashman: Now, I'm happy to report that Ian Prsayskata, the young, scrappy truffle vendor that you'll hear from in this episode, is still selling truffles through his company Regalis Foods. They got a whole lot of other incredible specialty items, too. And Ian did publish a memoir called Truffle Boy. 

Dan Pashman: Now, remember, if there's an episode of The Sporkful you want us to pull out of the deep freezer, let us know. Send us an email or a voice memo to hello@sporkful.com. Tell me your name, location, what episode you want us to reheat and why. Thanks so much and enjoy our final Reheat of the year!

Dan Pashman: Ian Prsayskata tasted his first truffle when he was 15-years-old. He was out at a fancy restaurant with a friend's family.

Ian Prsayskata: The server came over and said, "Okay, we have a special for tonight, and it's a black truffle ravioli with a foie gras sauce," and it was music to my ears.

Dan Pashman: So why would a 15-year-old boy care about truffles? Well, Ian's family had just moved from Houston to rural Arkansas, and Ian had gotten really into foraging for mushrooms. For foragers, truffles are almost mythical. They're really hard to find because they grow underground around the roots of trees. They have this flavor and aroma that's just legendary. And of course, they're insanely expensive. So there in that restaurant, Ian ordered the truffle dish.

Ian Prsayskata: There were chunks of black truffle in the ravioli. I mean, it was earthy. It was nutty. It was mysterious. I mean, it was this unknown flavor that I had never tasted. That was it. I mean, it was like such a revelatory experience. You know, I can't even remember, like, you know, where I parked the car yesterday, but yet I remember everything about this moment.

Dan Pashman: Ian became obsessed. He took all his savings and used it to buy a kilo of truffles on an Italian website. When they arrived, he realized he'd gotten way more than he could eat, so he took the leftovers to a restaurant in town.

Ian Prsayskata: I showed up on the doorstep with this bag of truffles and a scale I had bought at Target and an invoice book from Staples. And I said, "Hi, I'm Ian. I have some truffles. Would you be interested in buying some truffles?" And I don't know if it was the novelty of this, you know, buck tooth 15-year-old kid walking in the door with a bag full of truffles, but I sold them, and I made a profit.

Dan Pashman: And that moment is why my friend Stacy and I are standing in a walk-in refrigerator in Queens at 11 in the morning on a Tuesday, cracking open a shipment of white truffles that Ian's just flown in from Italy.

Stacey Vanek Smith: So how much money is in this box?

Ian Prsayskata: I don't know, $20,000?

Stacey Vanek Smith: There's $20,000 in this styrofoam box?

Ian Prsayskata: Yep. [LAUGHS] 

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Dan Pashman: $20,000 is about 8 pounds of truffles and he is going to sell all 8 pounds by 5 P.M. today. That's when restaurants start the dinner rush — oh, also truffles don't keep.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Today on The Sporkful, we'll follow Ian as he hustles his way through some of the finest kitchens in New York selling truffles. We'll battle traffic, parking cops, smugglers, penny pinching chefs, and the cruel mistress of time. We're trying to figure out why people go so crazy for this food and how a 24-year-old, who sells them out of the trunk of his car, is on pace to do $6 million in sales this year. Stick around. 

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Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. This episode is a special collaboration with our friends at NPR's Planet Money podcast, which means I get to have a co-host. My friend Stacey Vanek Smith, Planet Money reporter, joins me. Hey, Stacey.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Hi, Dan.

Dan Pashman: So welcome.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Thank you.

Dan Pashman: You ready to eat some truffles?

Stacey Vanek Smith: So ready to eat some truffles.

Dan Pashman: All right. Good, good. So I should say, if you heard Stacey and me do the truffle story on Planet Money recently, the first part of this show is going to be very similar.

Stacey Vanek Smith: But you can skip ahead to about the 21-minute mark for a whole other part that wasn't on Planet Money. And Dan and I really love this part because we get into this whole discussion about whether we like truffles more just because they're expensive and kind of the aura around them. And I have to say, Dan, we get pretty deep.

Dan Pashman: Yeah. I think we could go so far as to say it's going to get metaphysical. 

[LAUGHING]

Stacey Vanek Smith: We do, though.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, so stay tuned for that. But before we get to that, let's go over some facts. Truffles are a fungus, like mushrooms, although they are not actually mushrooms. Today we're focusing on white truffles, which are the most expensive, most sought after variety because they have the strongest aroma and because they're the hardest to find. White truffles are only available from October to the end of the year, and they cannot be farmed or grown in a greenhouse. You can only get them by going out into the woods with an animal trained to smell them underground. That probably makes you think of pigs. But truffle hunters actually switched to using dogs a long time ago because the pigs wised up and started eating the truffles themselves.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Right. In fact, I think it's illegal to hunt truffles with pigs in Italy.

Dan Pashman: That's right.

Stacey Vanek Smith: But let's go back for now to that warehouse in Queens where Ian is inspecting the shipment of truffles he just received. So he cuts the box open. It's ... It's ... It's this cardboard box covered in U.S. custom stickers ... 

Dan Pashman: What is this moment like for you, Ian?

Ian Prsayskata: Pure anxiety, honestly. [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: That's because so many things can go wrong between the time the truffles come out of the ground in Italy and the time Ian gets them in Queens. They could get stolen. They could be left on an airport tarmac. The airline maybe doesn't refrigerate them properly. They could even have bugs.

Stacey Vanek Smith: The truffles have already been on this amazing journey. I mean, two days ago, these were underground in a forest in Tuscany.

Ian Prsayskata: I'm just removing all the ice packs from the top of the box.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Oh, is that the smell?

Ian Prsayskata: That is the smell.

Stacey Vanek Smith: What do you think? 

Dan Pashman: Oh my God ... that smell.

Stacey Vanek Smith: It's not good.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Stacey Vanek Smith: It's like ... 

Ian Prsayskata: I love it. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Burnt something. It's like, burnt.

Dan Pashman: To me, it's like mushrooms combined with dirty socks in a good way.

Stacey Vanek Smith: What is dirty socks in a good way mean?

Dan Pashman: Ian takes out a truffle. He holds it up to the light, smells it. It's kind of round and lumpy. It's sort of golden white. It almost looks like a Yukon gold potato.

Ian Prsayskata: This one is very nice.

Dan Pashman: Ian looks really relieved because he's banking on these truffles for his business, Regalis Foods.

Stacey Vanek Smith: White truffles are only in season for about 12 weeks. And during that time, Ian makes most of his money for the year.

Dan Pashman: Ian puts the truffles into a dented styrofoam cooler cover with packing tape, loads them into the trunk of his car and we're off.

Ian Prsayskata: All right, are you guys ready? Let's do it.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Ian needs to sell these $20,000 worth of truffles by 5 P.M. because that is when restaurants start gearing up for dinner.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, and if he doesn't do it, he's in trouble. Because literally every second that passes, the truffles are losing value.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Right. Because truffles are mostly water. And every moment that they are out of the ground, they are losing water, they are drying up.

Dan Pashman: So it's like with every red light that we had, a few pennies fall out of your pocket.

Ian Prsayskata: Pretty much. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Ian Prsayskata: I would say I lose about 3 percent a day. So if we do the math, I'm probably going to lose about ...  ugh, $1,500 today, just in evaporation loss.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Just in the trunk.

Ian Prsayskata: In the trunk.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Do you think about that when you're sitting in traffic?

Ian Prsayskata: I mean, I've learned not to.

Dan Pashman: A few red lights later, we arrive at Peoria in the West Village. It's noon. 

Ian Prsayskata: I'm just going to ... 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Are we backing down a one way street?

Ian Prsayskata: Illegally back in ... Yeah. I'm going back down the street. This guy is giving us the stink eye. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: So you're parking, like, in a red zone right now?

Ian Prsayskata: I'm in a red zone. 

Dan Pashman: How much money do you budget per year in parking tickets?

Ian Prsayskata: It's probably $10,000.

Stacey Vanek Smith: $10,000 a year in parking tickets? Really? 

Ian Prsayskata: Yeah. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: You just park wherever — you just got to park. The truffles will not wait.

Ian Prsayskata: They can't wait.

Dan Pashman: Ian jumps out of the car, grabs the styrofoam cooler, balances his scale on top of it, and we rush into the restaurant.

Ian Prsayskata: All right, let's make it quick. How are you?

Ian Prsayskata: How are you?

Christopher Cipollone: Hello truffle man. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Peoria is this really romantic kind of airy restaurant And the chef, Christopher Cipollone, meets us in the kitchen.

Dan Pashman: Ian's unwrapping the cooler right now. What are you thinking at this moment, chef, as he unwraps? What's going through your mind?

Christopher Cipollone: I'm pretty excited. I'm always excited by what Ian brings me.

Dan Pashman: Chef Chris starts poking through the cooler, looking through the truffles.

Christopher Cipollone: These are actually gorgeous, and we've been doing quite well with the truffles, my friend. So we're doing a simple handmade ricotta stracciatella, and we just glaze it in butter and pasta water and then just shave the truffles tableside.

Stacey Vanek Smith: How much is the dish?

Christopher Cipollone: The dish is only $85. It's a steal.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Dan, this blew my mind. I mean, think about it. This is like pasta and butter, which is basically what you feed each child who has the stomach flu. [DAN PASHMAN LAUGHS] I mean, it is some of the cheapest food you can get anywhere, and Chef Chris is charging $85 for a plate of buttered pasta.

Dan Pashman: Well, buttered pasta with truffles on top. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: And there is some logic to it because the idea is you want something kind of simple so that all the focus is on the truffles. You know, like you don't hang the “Mona Lisa" on a plaid wall. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: Right? You put it on a white wall with a big spotlight on it. And pasta with butter is the culinary equivalent of a white wall. 

Christopher Cipollone: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: And how many grams of truffles go in? 

Christopher Cipollone: Five.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Five grams is the weight of a nickel. That is how expensive truffles are. For that amount, Chef Chris is paying Ian about $25, and he's charging his diners about $85. That is a $60 markup.

Dan Pashman: That's a powerful food right there.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes, it is. And Chef Chris says people are happy to pay this amount because truffles are special. You can't get them all the time. Most places don't have them. And they're just excited to have this experience.

Christopher Cipollone: Every year we — people kind of love to see what we are doing with truffles this year and what kind of preparations we're doing and .. 

Dan Pashman: Chef Chris buys just under a half pound of truffles, which is, I mean, just a few truffles — that each one the size of a racquetball. We peeked over at the bill.

Stacey Vanek Smith: That's a lot of money for truffles. $967!

Christopher Cipollone: It'll be  gone in a couple of days. It's all good.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Dan Pashman: So this whole time that we're talking to Chef Chris, Ian is texting madly on his phone, glancing toward the door every few minutes, you know, tapping his toe on the floor. He hasn't even sold a pound of truffles yet. And we got 4.5 hours to go until the restaurants start dinner service. 

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Dan Pashman: Ian packs up the truffles, and we're off.

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Stacey Vanek Smith: And ... 

Ian Prsayskata: And no ticket.

Stacey Vanek Smith: No ticket!

Dan Pashman: The next deal went down literally on a street corner. Ian pulls over, a private chef of a wealthy family comes out and they pop the trunk. She goes through the truffles and within a couple of minutes, another sale.

Stacey Vanek Smith: How'd it go?

Ian Prsayskata: Great. Good. Over 4000 sold.

Stacey Vanek Smith: $4,000?

Ian Prsayskata: Yeah.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Between the private chef and Peoria, Ian, who sold $5,000 worth of truffles, but he still has $15,000 more to sell. So we drive to the house of a hedge fund billionaire. Ian jumps out of the car, sells him a pound of truffles.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, I guess, you know, he's got to put it in his coffee or something. You need that. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Stacey Vanek Smith: By now it is 1:30 and the dinner rush starts in 3 and half hours.

Ian Prsayskata: Almost there. 

[CARS HONKING]

Stacey Vanek Smith: So how are we doing so far clockwise?

Ian Prsayskata: We're a little behind.

Dan Pashman: The whole time we're with Ian, he is just in the zone. I mean, he's texting, he's driving, he's making deals on the phone and in person. The guy just has so much focus and he's only 24-years-old, which I think Stacy reminded both of us that we are total failures. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Also old. 

Dan Pashman: Yes. [LAUGHS] 

Stacey Vanek Smith: But Ian's been doing this a long time. He came to New York when he was 18-years-old. And at the time, he bought a minivan and he would load it up every day with truffles and fresh mushrooms.

Ian Prsayskata: I would drive around to restaurants and beg chefs to come out to the van and take a look at what was inside my van. I was working 16 hour days, like hustling, and, you know, I had so much stress. I was losing hair and I had this weird, like acne, like, flare up, and I was embarrassed to, like, go outside. And I would just make an entire vat of macaroni and cheese and basically just, like, watch Netflix and, like, cry myself to sleep on weekends and it sucked.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Things are much better for Ian these days. In fact, this year he is on track to make $6 million in sales.

Dan Pashman: And the whole time we're driving around with him, I was just so struck by the contrast between those huge dollar figures that we keep seeing and hearing and just the ragtag nature of the operation itself. [LAUGHS] I mean, he's got these styrofoam coolers in the back of a rental car because the other car broke down. He's 24-years-old, sort of unshaven and looking somewhat sleep deprived. And so, he has, like, more in common, it seems, with a mid-level weed dealer [STACEY VANEK SMITH LAUGHS] than a luxury food titan. But that's what he is. I mean, he just signed a multi-million dollar deal with Williams-Sonoma to sell truffle salt and truffle oil.

Stacey Vanek Smith: But Ian told us he is never going to stop doing this fresh truffle hustle. It is the centerpiece of his business. It's how he makes most of his money and it's how he keeps up his relationships with the best chefs in New York, relationships that he made when he started selling mushrooms out of his minivan. In fact, one of his first customers, who used to buy things out of his minivan, is where we are headed next. That is Lure Fishbar and the chef is a guy named Josh Capon.

Ian Prsayskata: This is one chef that loves to bargain. Um ... [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: So what's your strategy going in this ... in a situation like this?

Ian Prsayskata: Umm, maybe start a little high, see what he says.

[OPENING CAR DOORS]

Stacey Vanek Smith: All right, we're double parked. We're going in.

Dan Pashman: All right. Fingers crossed. No tickets. 

[CAR DOOR SHUTS] 

Dan Pashman: The restaurant’s packed. It's the middle of the lunch rush, so we wait a little while for the chef to come out. Ian sits down his cooler. He's still texting, texting, texting. And then finally, the kitchen door's open and the chef comes out ...

Josh Capon: Hey, Josh. 

Ian Prsayskata: How are you?

Josh Capon: What's up, buddy? My name is Josh Capon. We are here at the legendary Lure Fishbar with my good, good buddy Ian. Ian's actually in my phone as “Ian Truffle Boy”.

Dan Pashman: Chef Josh starts inspecting the truffles. 

Josh Capon: Well, it's always a pleasure to see him and what exciting, beautiful, and in this case, gorgeous smelling white truffle is from Pimonte to Tuscany. Tuscany is one of the truest, beautiful pleasures of the world. I went there on my honeymoon. I stayed in a castle. It was stupendous. And just smelling these white truffles, I'm transported back to that castle with my wife where we drank champagne with fresh peaches off the trees and made love in the forest together amongst the hogs. Is this for radio or TV? What's going on?

[DAN PASHMAN AND STACEY VANEK SMITH LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: If it was for TV, I think that the screen just went dark.

Stacey Vanek Smith: I think we just went NC-17.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Totally. So Chef Josh picks out a few truffles and piles them on Ian's little kitchen scale and then they both start punching numbers into their own calculators on their phones. 

Josh Capon: I say we knock this number down to $1200 even ... 

Ian Prsayskata: All right. We'll do it. 

Josh Capon: $1,000 even.

Ian Prsayskata: I can't take more down. 

Josh Capon: Come on. $1100. 

Ian Prsayskata: [LAUGHS] I can't!

Josh Capon: And at the same time — Look at that. Look at that! Ladies and gentlemen, $14 just came off the bill. Amazing.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Chef Josh buys five truffles for $1,200.

Dan Pashman: Josh says he plans to serve them tonight on a lobster risotto and on a special cheeseburger that he makes at his burger place across the street. The white truffles, he puts on one burger cost him $22. Add in the other ingredients and it costs him about $27. Josh charges $68 for this special burger. Now, that might sound like a big markup, but the standard in restaurants is to charge three times the cost of the food. That's how you cover other expenses, like staff and rent. If Josh charged triple his cost for this truffle burger, he'd be charging $81 instead of $68. So actually, if you're in the market for truffles, this burger's kind of a bargain. And Josh says, it has quite a reputation.

Josh Capon: You got to — just just come out of the white truffle burger at Burger and Barrel and it will literally blow your mind.

Stacey Vanek Smith: We rush back to the car. Ian still has about $12,000 worth of truffles left to sell ... and it's 2:30.

Dan Pashman: Our next stop is Minetta Tavern. It's a well-known, pretty high end place in the West Village. The chef is Dan Silverman. He's a tall, kind of reserved guy. He says he's been seeing a lot of truffle dealers around lately.

Dan Silverman: This time of year, people just — yeah, people just wandering off the street with, like, checkered cloth bundles full of truffles. There is just, like, random people always every year ... 

Ian Prsayskata: Smuggle them. Yeah. 

Dan Silverman: Yeah, probably. I like to buy from the people that I know.

Dan Pashman: And here's the thing. There are Ians all over New York City right now. You could be passing one on the street right now with a backpack full of 20 grand worth of truffles. And some of the people are from other companies, but a lot of them are just hustlers. They're walking from one restaurant to another with a backpack full of truffles that they smuggled from Europe.

Stacey Vanek Smith: And you could see why they would do this. I mean, one truffle can cost $1,000 and you can fit a lot of truffles into a suitcase. When we get back in the car, Ian tells us, yeah, there are a lot of truffle smugglers in New York right now and they've really hurt his business.

Dan Pashman: They cut out the middleman. They don't pay customs fees and they've cut his profits in half. Ian says he used to make 20% profit on truffles. Now more like 10%.

Ian Prsayskata: Ritzy restaurants like the, you know, the two and three Michelin starred restaurants are the ones that love to negotiate because they're getting so many ... so many different truffle people in the door trying to sell them product that they have a choice of who they buy from. 

Dan Pashman: At this point, it's 3:30 and Ian's got to leave us. He's got 90 minutes left to unload, like $10,000 worth of truffles. [LAUGHS] And let's face it, Stacey, we were slowing him down.

Stacey Vanek Smith: So Ian drops us off in Soho. And at this point, we are both starving, and we both smell like dirty socks.

Dan Pashman: In a good way ... 

Stacey Vanek Smith: [LAUGHS] In a good way ... 

Dan Pashman: Stacy, in a good way ... 

Stacey Vanek Smith: I'll take your word for it. 

Dan Pashman: Right.

Stacey Vanek Smith: And I mean, we've been watching thousands of dollars change hands  for these truffles. And I still have never tried one. I have no idea what the fuss is all about.

Dan Pashman: That's right, Stacy. And because we're consummate journalists, we head to Burger and Barrel to try Chef Capon's $68 truffle burger.

Server: This is the third week that we've been getting in white truffles. And in honor of that, we're doing our famous white truffle burger. I highly recommend.

Stacey Vanek Smith: I would like to order that.

Dan Pashman: Our burgers arrive, and they are beautiful. The truffles are sliced thin and fanned out over the top of the burger so you can see them. Five grams, apparently, worth of truffles. We took our bites.

[RESTAURANT MUSIC]

Stacey Vanek Smith: Okay, this is it. This is the big moment. 

Dan Pashman: I'm going in. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: I don't know how to describe it. It's like shoes. It tastes like shoes? Smoked shoes?

Dan Pashman: I told you dirty ... dirty socks ... 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Dirty socks:

Dan Pashman: In a good way. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: See?

Stacey Vanek Smith: It came back around. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Pretty socks in a good way. 

Dan Pashman: Right! 

Stacey Vanek Smith: It does taste like dirty socks in a good way. It's the best description. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] 

Stacey Vanek Smith: I'm sorry I doubted you! I am in. 

Dan Pashman: All right! 

Stacey Vanek Smith: I am in. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: What is it about that dirty sock taste that is so good? Like, what was it about that flavor that made Ian devote his life to truffles? To start to understand this, we reached out to Avery Gilbert. He is a smell scientist, and he told us that one big factor in the taste of truffles is this molecule called androstenedione.

Avery Gilbert: It's a natural component of human body odor, in sweat and urine, often more in males and females. So it's ... Androstenedione by itself as a kind of musky urine-like almost character.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Do we love truffles because they smell like us? Is it like a person? Is that why we react so viscerally to them?

Avery Gilbert: I think that some of the draw. Body odor notes in general are very salient for us. It's how we choose our mates. It's how we recognize kin. And possibly, part of the allure of truffles is that it's a body odor, but it's showing up in your food.

Dan Pashman: Avery says farmers will spray female pigs with androstenedione to get them in the mood.

Stacey Vanek Smith: The thing that we most want from the finest fussiest restaurants in the world is sweat, sex, and urine. That is why we love truffles so much.

Dan Pashman: You'd think it'd be easier to replicate. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: [LAUGHS] And cheaper. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Yeah, totally. But I do think there's also something about this high-low combination with the way the restaurants get the food. It's like one of their finest, most desired ingredients and they're getting it in this sort of sketchy back alley kind of way.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Right. People wandering in off the street with napkins full of truffles or styrofoam coolers ... Speaking of which, we checked back in with Ian to see how the rest of his day had gone.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, he probably should have kept us around a little bit longer because we were his good luck charm. And after he left us, his car got towed ... 

Stacey Vanek Smith: With $5,000 worth of truffles in the trunk.

Dan Pashman: Right. Which is like your car getting towed with $5,000 worth of cash in the trunk.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Cash that is disintegrating.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Right, right. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: But this is where all of Ian's calls and texting that he'd been doing all day paid off because he'd actually been taking orders from chefs all over the country for any leftover truffles he might have. So as soon as he got his car out of the impound lot, he sped to the Fedex office at JFK Airport.

Dan Pashman: And in Ian's world, this is a buzzer beater because there in the parking lot, he packed up the truffles and got them sent out just before the final Fedex deadline, which means that if you recently ate truffles in Chicago or L.A. or San Francisco, it's quite possible that they were packed up in the trunk of Ian's car. 

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Dan Pashman: So everything you just heard, I played it for Mrs. Sporkful and she said to me ... Bull. She said, "The only reason you think truffles taste good is because they're expensive. If you took a blind taste test, you wouldn't know what you were eating. You're a sucker." All right, maybe she wasn't that harsh, but ... And that was her basic point. So was she, right? Coming up, Stacey and I will debate that question with smell scientist Avery Gilbert. Stick around. 

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Dan Pashman: I am so happy that American Express is the presenting sponsor of today's episode because I love American Express. I have an AmEx Personal Gold card. If you dine out often, I strongly recommend the Amex Gold Card. So when you go to eat, you use your Amex Gold Card — first of all, you break out an AmEx Gold Card, you know, you just — you kind of feel like a V.I.P., but also when you dine out, you get extra points at restaurants and those points add up fast. Before you know it, you're gonna have enough points for flight somewhere. Cardholders can enroll and earn up to $120 back in statement credits after paying at participating dining partners, up to $10 each month and get up to $120 back annually after you pay with the American Express Gold Card to dine at U.S. Resy restaurants, or make other eligible Resy purchases. Like I said, with my AmEx Gold Card, I just feel like a V.I.P. and I feel like I'm always racking up points. I get 4 times points at restaurants globally on up to $50,000 annually. AmEx Gold rewards your love of dining experiences allowing you to check out new restaurants, connect with your family and friends, and explore exciting flavors all while earning points. That's the powerful backing of American Express. For terms and to learn more, visit AmericanExpress.com/withamex.

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Dan Pashman: Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. Hey, if you want to hear what I'm eating and reading every week, you should sign up for the Sporkful newsletter. I'll give you my weekly recommendations and so do our producers and the whole rest of our team. We also share announcements about exciting things happening with the show, when there's special discounts on my pastas. And on top of all that, if you subscribe to the newsletter, you're automatically entered into giveaways for cookbooks featured on the show — as long as you live in the U.S. or Canada. There's literally no downside. Sign up right now at sporkful.com/newsletter. I promise we won't spam you. We're only going to send you really good stuff. Again, that's sporkful.com/newsletter. Thanks. Now back to this week's Reheat.

Dan Pashman: Now I want to welcome back my co-host for this episode, Stacey Vanek Smith from Planet Money. Hey, Stacey.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Hi, Dan.

Dan Pashman: So in order to figure out whether those truffle burgers actually tasted as good as we thought they did, we first have to talk just a bit about the way we decide how something tastes.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Right. I mean, you might think about taste as something that just happens in your mouth or in your nose in your mouth. But researchers now say that taste is really something that happens in your brain. And according to smell scientist Avery Gilbert, our brains are taking in a lot of information while we're eating.

Avery Gilbert: The taste of your food can be altered by things like the color of the plate or the weight or the cutlery or the color of the tablecloth, the ambient music that's being played. Ambient music can change the flavor of your beer and it can change your evaluation of the wine you're drinking, as well. So all of this stuff is kind of feeding into your appreciation and evaluation of a dish.

Dan Pashman: Tell me about the role that the price of knowing what a food costs, how does that affect the way I perceive something I'm eating.

Avery Gilbert: Knowing the price will change your perception of a product's quality, whether we're talking about perfume or wine, for example. Two wines that are equally pleasant to people when they're blindfolded, then you tell them about the price or the brand name for that matter of one, and they'll like that one suddenly much more, especially if they've paid for it.

Dan Pashman: If I told the person, here's a $50 plate of truffles and here's a $100 plate of truffles, which do you think tastes better? Most people are going to say the $100 plate tastes better, even if it is the same truffles in both plates, right?

Avery Gilbert: Yeah. Yeah, on average, you can get higher ratings with the more expensive one.  

Dan Pashman: Right. There's an assumption that when you go out and spend more for a product that you would not have been able to identify the difference in a blind taste test that you are somehow a rube.

Avery Gilbert: All right. That's — yeah, that's wrong. It's just ...  It's a common presumption, though. The blind taste test, psychologists like me come along, and too often it's a matter of coming into a nice, sterile white lab and you put on a blindfold, and somebody puts a tube in front of your nose and they say, "Smell this. Do you like it?" You know, how would I know? What is it? It's an unnatural act because you've stripped away all the context, all the multi-sensory context, all the other information that you're naturally drawing on when you make an evaluation like this.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Is there nothing like real there, though? Is it all just perception? Because Dan and I just — we paid $68 for cheeseburgers, which is more than I've ever paid for a cheeseburger. I mean, and it sounds like you don't — I mean, did we get ripped off?

Avery Gilbert: No. You had the perception and if it was enjoyable, it was worth it.

Dan Pashman: Whatever you pay for an eating experience, if you come away from that experience feeling that it was worth it, if your brain tells you that you got $68 worth of pleasure from that, then inherently it was worth it.

Stacey Vanek Smith: But there is, like, I feel like a certain ounce ... like, concrete elements in the value of a food. I mean, in the truffles, there is a scarcity. They can't grow them. They are hard to get. I mean, there are actual factors, as opposed to if I just gave you, like, a slice of American cheese and you ate it and you're like, "Wow, that seems like I got $60 worth of pleasure out of that." Is it really ... Is it just the story of the truffle and the mystique of the truffle that is causing the cost? It's not like that it actually is some flavor that does something cool to our emotions that — I mean, because I am sort of compelled by the fact it smells human, that — I feel like there's something there.

Avery Gilbert: That's ... I think that you put your finger on it. That's the key. The story and mystique are all fine. And we — you know, every perfume company tries to create that for its brands and certain wines have that about them. But it's just the weirdness factor of what it smells and tastes like, and then it's in food. What I'm struggling with is how much of a minority taste it is. The people that like truffles that are willing to spend big on them. I mean, it would be quite a reveal if it turns out it's just Palo Alto billionaires and Russians with mega yachts. But if it's regular folks who when they have a chance to get it and can, you know, pay 3 or 4 times the usual price, do it, that speaks to me of something of value intrinsically in the sensory experience.

Stacey Vanek Smith: I think there's something to the pigs. I think the pigs are the key. Or maybe I just cannot believe that I was duped by the whole story.

Dan Pashman: I think that there's a third way, Stacy. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Okay. 

Dan Pashman: This is what I'm ... 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Tell me. 

Dan Pashman: You know, you're saying that ... You're suggesting there's a choice between either these things are: We have a natural pig-like predisposition to crave this flavor or smell?

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: Option one. That's ... You know, that there's objective truth here. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: And option two is, if not, then we're just all a bunch of suckers who are paying all this money for something that we don't really have any appreciation for.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes.

Dan Pashman: I think that there's something in between those two.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Hmm. 

Dan Pashman: Which is that we do have a true appreciation for this rare flavor. There is an experience on your tongue and in your nose that's taking place that tastes really good. As Avery told us, you need that. Like to say that anything you're eating tastes amazing, you have to have that first. Then in addition to that, there is everything your brain is telling you. 

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: Of how much it costs. The story you're going to be able to tell your friends that you got to eat this special food knowing that everyone else wants this, but either can't find it or can't get it or can't afford it. And then the knowledge that you are indulging yourself.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Yes.

Dan Pashman: And so all of those things in your brain are added on top of the objective truth of the good flavor. And you reach this higher plane of deliciousness ... 

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Dan Pashman: And then you say, "Well, was it worth it?", and at that point, if your brain says, "Yes, this entire experience was worth it," then you have not been duped. 

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Dan Pashman: Stacy, any final thoughts?

Stacey Vanek Smith: I will say this. I would be sad if they figured out how to cultivate white truffles. I really like the idea that there is still this thing in the world that is sort of mystical and mythical and wild and can only be found with dogs in the forests of Tuscany.

Dan Pashman: Right, or, you know, eventually, soon robots.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Drones. Yes. Truffle hunting drones.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] All right. Well, our thanks also to Ian Purkayastha of Regalis Foods. He has a book coming out in February all about his rise to truffle glory. You can preorder it now. It's called Truffle Boy.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Thanks also to Helen Hollyman, editor in chief of the great website Munchies. She put us in touch with Ian.

Dan Pashman: And thanks to you, Stacey Vanek Smith. This was a lot of fun.

Stacey Vanek Smith: Thank you, Dan.

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Avery Gilbert: I mean, from a chemical point of view, the fact it's got androstenedione and a couple of other related molecules, there aren't a lot of foods that have that. In fact, if you get androstenedione in ham, you know, in a pork product, it's called boar taint. And it's usually discarded ... [LAUGHING] because it's considered bad. [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: Wait, I'm sorry ... [COUGHS] 

[LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: We got to rewind for a second. Are you telling me that the exact same molecule that makes truffles so prized, when in ham, is called "boar taint"? 

Avery Gilbert: Yeah.

[LAUGHING] 

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 Dan Pashman: And hey, did you know that you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? Then there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM.com/sporkful.

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Dan Pashman: Thank you to our presenting sponsor American Express. AmEx Gold makes your dining experiences more rewarding so you can discover more, connect more, and experience more dining moments. Enjoy every meal with the benefits that come with American Express Gold. For terms and to learn more, visit AmericanExpress.com/withamex.