Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Truffles

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by podcaster and bestselling author Dana Schwartz ('Noble Blood' podcast, new book 'Immortality: A Love Story') for a look at why truffles are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Truffles. Known for being food. Famous for being fancy. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why truffles are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. My wonderful guest today is Dana Schwartz, who is an amazing podcaster and novelist. She hosts the podcast Noble Blood, where she tells amazing stories of fascinating royals and nobles, and to my mind, other people who would have eaten today's topic. Dana's also a number one New York Times bestselling

author because her novel Anatomy, A Love Story was a huge hit. It was praised by folks like Neil Gaiman, and she's completing the cycle of that duology with a new book out in February of 2023. It's called Immortality, A Love Story. So, you know, check out Anatomy now and then pre-order Immortality and you'll have an amazing gothic romantic adventure. There you go. Also, you know, check out Anatomy now, and then pre-order Immortality, and you'll have an amazing gothic romantic adventure. There you go. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples, acknowledge Dana recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples, and acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people

are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and today's episode is about truffles. And truffles might be a little of a mystery to you. Are they a food? Are they a living thing? Are they from the earth? And that mystery is, I think, everybody's starting point. That's where we start from, and we got a great episode out of it. So, please sit back, or let me know immediately if you listen to this episode while foraging for truffles. People still do it, and I would be so happy. Just let me know and send me a picture of the pig or dog, whatever. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Dana Schwartz. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. David Schwartz, it is so nice to have you on the show. And of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it.

So how do you feel about truffles? The food. The food, yeah. Yeah, like normal positive, I think. yeah the food yeah like like normal positive i think like you know if i'm at a fancy pizza place and they're like truffles on this pizza i'm like i'm never gonna do that thing where it's like some crazy restaurant where it's like a thousand extra dollars but if this is a restaurant they have like a little truffle oil on the pizza or like you know one or two shavings on the pasta like yeah let's let's live i do like purposefully rebel against any restaurant where so clearly there's an option for men to try to impress their dates you know like like a hundred

dollar martini or like for you know six hundred dollars have this truffle so like instinctually i'm like no i am against this morally and spiritually. But the flavor, I have nothing against. I think it's good in moderation. And I know pigs are involved, and I think that's cute. It is. There's something really pastoral about those pictures of, like, a guy in suspenders with his pig friend finding the truffles. Like, cool, look at you two. Exactly.

Look at you exactly look at you too you're like living the life in the english countryside that i fantasize about even though you probably voted for brexit yeah once they have that like green hat or whatever it is it's like okay all right you're into the countryside a little too much i see i see I see. I just don't want to I want to ask your opinions on soil and I will not ask your political opinions. Yeah. Yeah. I also I have been playing this topic for a while, but I a little bit thought of your podcast Noble Blood just because like some maybe Midwestern part of me always thinks like as much as I'm into truffles, it's also like fancy. It's for the fancies, even though I have, I consumed it like a week ago. It's for fancy people, you know? I, I fully think it's for the fancies. Yeah. Also, where in the Midwest are you from? We're

going to have to do a brief. Oh, please. Outside Chicago, Glen Ellyn, Illinois and the Western suburbs. I'm from outside Chicago in the northern suburbs. Have we talked about, I guess we haven't talked about this. Wow. Okay. I'm from Highland Park. This is good. Okay.

We did it. We both agree that truffles are fancy and we're both from around Chicago. Because even when you mentioned them on pizza, I think I was never exposed to them on pizza until outside of home. Oh my gosh, of course. It was always like sausage and onions. That was it. It was great.

Oh, the big treat growing up, like the most exotic pizza we had, was there was a place that did Italian beef on the pizza, but underneath the cheese. Let's leave and go. Like, what are we doing taping? I know. That was like, oh oh my god should we

should we go there they're innovating in the form yeah before researching i borderline didn't know what truffles are like i knew it's a food it turns out it is a mushroom as i guessed but uh like were you at all familiar besides the the pigs and the guys about how these work? Now that you say they're mushrooms, I'm like, okay, yeah. I guess, gun to my head, I might have been able to put that out. Same. But I have never thought about it. I'm just like, you know, it's a food.

It's a thing that grows in the ground. Yeah. But it makes sense that it's a mushroom. Yeah. And let's get into how that works. Because normally the show starts with numbers and statistics and then a couple of big takeaways. But I wanted to start this week with one big takeaway about what these are. Because I think most people are in our boat.

And takeaway number one. Truffles are an underground fungus in a mutual relationship with plant roots what is what does that mean yeah it turns out like i think people's mental picture of a mushroom is a little toadstool above the ground yeah it turns out that truffles grow around the roots of plants especially trees and then truffles and the trees like each help each other live. Like the truffles help the trees get water and then the trees do photosynthesis and give sugars and nutrients to the truffles. It's like a symbiotic relationship. Yeah. And one of my sources, it's a book called Truffle, A Global History by Zachary Nowak. I

guess he says that like there's some debate about how symbiotic it is. Like some experts say they both totally benefit and others say like if the tree could get rid of the truffles, it would. Doesn't like it. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So we don't really know. But yeah. I mean, that's kind of cute that truffles have manipulated this situation. So they're benefiting from trees. And also they've tricked humans into thinking that they're fancy, worth hundreds of dollars an ounce. I kind of admire it. It's like pluck.

Like I'm totally personifying it, but I'm imagining Truffles is like, we're dirt muffins. We have to really, we have to Kris Jenner this PR situation for ourselves. Dirt muffins. Exactly. Yeah. Right? Like they're really, they're winning.

Good for them. Yeah. And they're out here like attracting pigs and people and, and good, you know? They've made themselves feel really special. People have to look for them. Other mushrooms just pop up and you're like, oh, well now I have to deal with this. But they're like, no, no, come to us. Right. And it's, yeah. And it's especially in France and Italy. The author of this book,

Zachary Nowak, he's the director of the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Italy. And so is around truffles a lot. That's why he wrote about it. But there's other types. Oh, go ahead. and so is around truffles a lot. That's why I wrote about it. But there's other types. Oh, go ahead. Can I say the most ignorant thing I'm probably going to say on this show? Please.

Is there enough about truffles to write a book about? Turns out, yeah, yeah. And especially because there's like a bunch of species all over the world. It's not just the European fine dining ones I'm used to. So is the book more about like the ecology, like biology thing, or is it more about like the economic way that truffle has, or both? It's about both. And that's how they got a whole book. Yeah.

Interesting. All right. I'm back in. I'm in. Good. Yeah. Cause it turns out like the biology on its own, I have never done an episode about any kinds of mushrooms. So this is the most I've thought about mushrooms in a long time. But truffles are mushrooms, they're fungi. And when you see like a visible mushroom, like a toadstool, technically, that is the fruiting body of a spore. spore like a spore is the start of a fungus and then this fruiting body is the mushroom and that spreads more spores and spreads the the fungus but truffles are different because like all fungi they don't do photosynthesis like plants do they don't have to be exposed to sunlight or above the ground and so truffles live underground and then they form a network of what are called hyphae they're small hairs small little things that wrap around the roots of a tree and then they form a network of what are called hyphae. They're small hairs, small little things that wrap around the roots of a tree. And then they form this relationship where they're trading things. Wow.

It's so weird. That's wild to imagine plants growing underground. Or fungus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A fungus. Yeah.

Sorry. I'm the dummy who doesn't know the difference between plants and fungus, but it's, it's, it's astonishing to me to imagine any living thing growing underground. And, and not a dummy. Cause like there, there is some part of my mind, even after researching all this stuff that still says like stuff that grows from the ground is plants and stuff that runs around as animals. And that's how it works like i exactly that's how i always found it very weird when you play that game and you have to be like is it a is it a person is it an animal or is it a mineral i always thought mineral was getting way too big of a billing there right who's who's minerals agent and i sort of always felt like that about fungi and biology where i'm like can't we just also make this plants whoever like the ceo of 20 questions is like why did we sign a hundred year deal with minerals this is terrible i'm firing everyone yeah no one's ever doing 20 questions with minerals yeah has anyone ever right like unless your opponent is wearing a mining helmet or something. Like, don't guess that way.

That doesn't make sense. I guess if you're studying for your geology exam. Yeah. Yeah. And with this other category of fungus, like this is a particularly weird one even for fungus. And this is Zachary Nowak describing truffles. weird one even for fungus. And this is Zachary Nowak describing truffles. The truffle wraps small hairs around the tree's roots like a kind of loose knit glove. Then the tree provides the truffle with sugars and other nutrients through this cellular glove, which is called a heartache

net. And then in return, the truffle forms a huge network of hairs called hyphae that absorb water and minerals for the tree to use, which expands the reach of the tree's root system. Yeah. I mean, that sounds helpful. Yeah, it seems good. I don't really know, but I lean toward the side of this is symbiotic and positive. Like, it seems like everybody wins.

Yeah. Or it's like a 60-40, but everyone's maybe benefiting a little. Right. Or maybe they're canceling out what they take, where it's like maybe they're not adding benefit, but it doesn't quite seem like they're just taking. Right, yeah, like it's working well enough. Truffles, they're underground to get all of this food

and do this relationship. And then that also complicates how they reproduce and how they spread their spores, which is why... Yeah, I was going to ask. It seems more challenging. They taste good? Is that how they spread their spores? Yeah, they're animals that are called fungivores that eat fungus and then truffles spread by getting eaten and then getting pooped out.

That's the deal. What a miracle that all this exists. It's just wild. It shouldn't exist. There shouldn't be all these working pieces that work together. Yeah, it's really shocking. And when you look at what pre-1800s people thought truffles were, they were very confused because this is not how most things work. And so a lot of people thought truffles were like a geological formation like rocks or just some other thing that is not an animal or plants or fungus or anything. Because it's weird. Yeah. Yeah. It is weird. No wonder people gave them their own category because we were confused by them. Yeah. They were like, time for me to do a lot of guesses. And the guesses were wild. Yeah.

And yet to play devil's advocate, there are a lot of animals and the guesses were wild yeah and yet to play devil's advocate there are a lot of animals doing weird things and we still group them in as animals true maybe plants should just be a bigger category i i'm gonna advocate for for just calling them plants i want i want the the biologist to come at me in my mentions right mad at me why can't fungi just be weird plants it can just be like a corporate merger or something like plants have acquired fungi in a major deal like a ticker is going about it

yeah stock symbol P acquires stock symbol F and that's it yeah I think the Supreme Court will allow that yeah it's not a monopoly fungi aren't doing anything right they're just sitting there sporing and yeah getting pooped i guess yeah but uh but yeah so this this is the basic way truffles work and also it turns out there are also lots of different truffle species. My familiarity with them was the black truffle and the white truffle.

Those are kind of the two you see in fancy food. Turns out black truffles are mainly from France, white truffles from northern Italy, and they grow around the roots of big hardwood trees, like oak trees and hazelnut trees. But there's a lot of other species out there. There's another truffle that is black colored, but it's called the Chinese truffle. And it's all across East Asia and grows around the roots of all sorts of trees there. Apparently, it's a much plainer flavor. And so you eat it almost more like a base, like a vegetable rather than a fancy oil flavoring like these European ones. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And there's another sort of base flavored truffle called the desert truffle

that's in North Africa and it's in the Middle East. And that one doesn't grow around trees. It grows around the roots of flowering shrubs, which are in the genus Helianthemum. So this is like a bush truffle in the desert. I guess you take what you can get in the desert. It doesn't seem like there would be a lot of hardwood trees there. Yeah, that's how it goes. Yeah. But even there, it's like not a lot of trees. We still have root fungus still going on. Interesting. Yeah. I want to try those. Me too. Yeah, I did not look hard to try to consume these other ones, but they're out there and I'd love to know what people think if they've had them.

I would just love to know what they taste like. I wonder if it's just a more mild version of that truffle-y flavor or if it's something totally different. It's fun that this is a hunger-inducing episode while talking about Dirt Muffins, you know? That's cool. Dirt Muffins. It's cool that weird fingers of roots and hairs are like, oh, that's I want to eat that. Great. Because it makes us the thing is also, look, we're not salivating over truffles.

We're associating because we associate truffles with like the most expensive, delicious pasta and pizza, like fancy pizza. That's what I'm like. Their PR team is nailing it. Yeah. pizza like that's what i'm like their pr team is nailing it yeah you say truffle and i immediately think like oh the most delicious cacio e pepe i've ever had yeah so many positives and i think that's part of why they're with us today like it's a relatively hard to find and get food but it's just so good so here we are yeah yeah And you only need another thing for like luxury goods that makes it, I feel like, feel important is like you only need a little and you only get a little.

Right. Right. Where if it's like any other food, if you're served a big slab of it, even if it's expensive, you're like, well, it can't be that rare. Like I'm getting a whole slab of it where it's like they're using like a razor blade to shave off like the tiniest little bit. And you're like, oh, special. Yeah.

It has to be rare because you only need a little bit for the flavor. But also that just reinforces how how special it is. Now I'm thinking of black pepper, like black pepper transforms if a fella does it with a wand. If it's just in a shaker at a diner table, I'm like, oh, yeah. But a guy did it. Whoa. And it doesn't have to be a guy. I don't know why I'm gendering it so hard, but you know what I mean. It's just an employee.

Yeah. He's holding a phallic thing. I get it. True. The symbolism there is very masculine. That's true, yeah. Yeah, and that's good pepper. For some reason, that pepper tastes better. You're like, I know why they colonized the world for this. I get it.

I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it, for the record, but I get it. Right. Yeah, and as far as the history of truffles, that leads us into the next segment here, because next segment is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week, that's in a segment called... It's been one week of me researching the stats and facts that make the podcast complete. And that name was submitted by John Steblik.

We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make him as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to Sip Pod on Twitter or to SipPod at gmail.com. It's amazing. Great job. Thank you. And yeah, the first number here is, speaking of weeks and dates and stuff, it's 1808. The year 1808. That is when a French farmer named Joseph Talon created the

first known truffle farm. All right. So they existed, but he's making it an actual farm. Yeah. Like in Europe before 1808, people were foraging truffles. That was the only way to get them. And then he figured out a way to farm black truffles specifically. We are still kind of trying to figure out how to farm white truffles. That's still the next frontier of farming them. But in 1808, this guy got information about which oak trees in his region of France were known to be good truffle hunting locations. And then he planted a set of acorns from them all in one place. And after some years, like, I don't know if he knew the exact details, but the fungus network developed and he was able to like plant and harvest black truffles. That's amazing. Also, because 1808 in France,

this is now me having to go noble blood on everyone. Look, after the 1790s, it's a tumultuous period in France. There's a lot of chaos that has happened very recently and is continuing to happen. And so I do like this one guy being like, look, if I can just make one thing orderly in my life, can I just make one thing easy?

I'm going to try. I really respect this farmer. France is figuring out whether they're gonna be a you know they're in like the the reign of terror they're coming back to like are we gonna be a monarchy what's gonna happen you know the muscadines are storming the streets and he's like look I'm gonna focus on my truffles and I really respect that I'm glad he didn't do like mistaken science of thinking that the revolution helps, you know, like, oh, if you want to grow truffles, you plant acorns and you kill an entire royal house and all their friends. Yeah.

That's what does it. It's the blood of nobles that really makes the truffles rich. Right. But yeah, and again, it's dead on. but yeah and again that's dead on like this is a a wild time and it is it's so pastoral to just be like forget new calendars and currencies and napoleon on the way or already there like i'm just gonna yeah just getting there i'm just gonna plant some trees and they'll make muffins great um do you think napoleon would have enjoyed truffles were they still considered fancy at this time oh i didn't check about him specifically i would i would think so yeah

they were they were but like yeah for this farmer farming them they were already a food that people wanted and valued yeah yeah they were already popular and he was trying to like win uh as a farmer yeah yeah so that makes sense. I'm going to imagine that Napoleon is munching on truffles. Yeah. He did. From what I've read about him, Napoleon did a lot of like moving into Versailles and wearing gold crowns. Like I think anything royal, he was like, I'm going to, I'm going to get in on that. Sounds good. Yeah. He loved symbolism to show off his own importance and godliness. And so if there was a food that was considered fancy, he'd be all about that.

I'm surprised there's not a portrait of him eating truffles. Yes. Like he keeps eating them too fast. They can't paint it in time. Yeah. They can't paint it in time. Savor it. And he's like, you know, just really go it in.

Yeah. And he's like, you know, just really go at him. But yeah, and so the black truffle now is something that humans can kind of cultivate on purpose. They don't have to just gather it. The next number here is about white truffles. It is up to $3,000 U.S. per pound. That's the modern price. $3,000.

Yeah, per pound, up to three grand. All right. I mean, a pound of truffles is a lot. You can get a lot out of it. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I'm going to also link an article from Food and Wine magazine because in last year, 2021, an Italian research institute claimed that they had like solved the problem of cultivating white truffles and, and getting trees to grow them outside their normal range. So if that's accurate, I don't know. And that's kind of on the way, but I'd like for now people don't know how to do what Talon did in the 1800s and like spark an orchard that will grow white truffles. So they're still gathered by people more often with dogs in the present day than pigs, but people with animals to dig these up.

That's so cute to me. It's adorable. Yeah. And apparently the dogs can be trained on the scent and the pigs more naturally find it but then want to eat it. So people go with dogs because the dog doesn't eat the truffle too, if it can. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. The dogs are better trained, but the pigs are more chaotic and adorable.

And next number here is $61,000 US. $61,000 US. That is the auction price paid for one white truffle in 2014. How much does that weigh? It weighed more than four pounds, but we're still way above the standard pricing. And apparently they partly bought it as a stunt, but also because it was considered

a particularly flavorful white truffle by however you analyze these things. That's wild to me. One that they can analyze. First, just to say that you can analyze how flavorful a truffle is just by looking at it. Because what if it was a bad truffle? Yeah. Also, imagining a four pound mushroom is wild to me in my head.

That just is a big mushroom. Yeah. And of course, someone freaking bought it as a stunt just to like, yeah, it's like a PR thing because they knew it'll get written up. We're we're broken. We should just all enjoy the pig mushrooms. sushi restaurants buying the first huge tuna of the season at a huge price is like a stunt. And then I read about that and then I went and ate a can of tuna later that day. There's such a range on these things. There really is, isn't there? Yeah.

The next number here is about cultivating black truffles. It is seven. And it's because seven is the minimum number of years it takes for a truffle farm to start producing. Oh, so this is also why it's expensive. It takes a lot of investment. Yeah, it's sort of a really good parallel is winemaking. And the source for this story is a New York Times piece where they covered a California winemaker who expanded into black truffles. Because like, it's one of these products where you have to apparently plant a truffle orchard, you get nothing for five years, and you don't hit peak production for at least seven years, maybe 11. So it's just very slow for this delicate fungus network to grow its little hairs and roots all over the trees.

It's a rich man's business. Yeah. And one more number. This is 1863, the year 1863. Okay. That is the year when insects wiped out most of the vineyards in France. Whoa. Yeah.

I'd never heard of this. And in 1863, an aphid-like insect insect called phylloxera which eats the roots of grape vines destroyed at least two-thirds of all french vineyards it just came into the region and started eating everything um and is known as the great french wine blight oh no in in the history of wines in france what a tragedy. Yeah, really bad. And then the source here is a cookbook called Simply Truffles by food writer Patricia Wells. She says that some European grape growers responded by, like, breeding and growing new grape vines that Phylloxera doesn't want to eat.

And so, you know, that keeps wine going. But a lot of other ones just moved into farming truffles. Like, this is about 50 years after they developed the farms and they said, okay, I'll just do this different luxury product. Great. And so that, that like massively increased the supply of truffles in the world. That makes sense that that's, you know, demand or supply matching demand. Yeah. Yeah. And it's kind of a cycle, Like then more people have heard of truffles and have access to them and then they want more. And so this like sudden 1863 death of a lot of wine led to a lot more truffles and is why a lot of people have heard of them.

That's really, really interesting. I also love when I learn about history, the fact that there's just a random thing that then had massive ramifications, the idea that just like this aphid-like blight happened and it massively changed the cultural agricultural economy of France is just like, sure, why not? Everyone just decided to grow truffles. Great. Everyone just decided to grow truffles. Great. Yeah. Also, as a Jewish person who I feel like culturally values food over alcohol, like growing up in my family, I like this shift. We're like, oh, well, we can't do this wine blight.

So let's have pasta. That's really fascinating. Yeah. I never think about any of these agricultural shifts or anything but yeah and it is i i like that um thing you describe about your family and that feeling like there are there are foods that i value like i value alcohol especially ice cream i'm like i'll just have that treat like forget it yeah i don't need to drink i value almost every food more than alcohol yeah makes sense well and so that's the

the numbers about it there's two more takeaways for this main show here and they're each about a major ancient myth about truffles uh that people believed uh wait wait can i can i guess one yeah yeah um that it makes your penis better exactly right that. That's the next thing. Yes. Yeah, nail it in. Oh, so much of history is men doing crazy things because they think it'll make their penis better. Sorry to interrupt. No, you just described exactly what's coming. Yeah, because takeaway number two.

We're pretty sure truffles are not an aphrodisiac, and that's thanks to scientists sequencing the truffle genome and analyzing boar saliva. Like, they checked, and it's definitely not that thing, guys thought. Boar saliva. And apparently pigs are pretty closely related to boars. Like, both animals are kind of used to find these, yeah. It's just very funny that somehow that involved how they figured this out. Yeah.

Good for scientists. Because to become the person who analyzes boar saliva, I feel like you have to spend many years on it. Like you don't just start for this interesting project. So it was probably a really good day in the office. Yeah. They've been doing boar saliva for years and finally they're like, oh, oh, good. We have a use. Yeah. And the key source here, it's an interview with Stanford University of Biology professor Kabir Pei, because he talks about how truffles depend

on fungivores to spread their spores. They depend on animals to dig them up, eat them, excrete them. on fungivores to spread their spores. They depend on animals to dig them up, eat them, excrete them. And so in order to attract animals, truffles release a lot of chemicals and hormones. Sure. And it's sort of like pheromones in mammal species. And one of those is that truffles are a big producer of androstenol, which is a steroidal pheromone. And that matches a key pheromone released by male wild boars and pigs,

and it can be found in their saliva. And it's also found in human sweat. And so, like, there's a long running myth that truffles are an aphrodisiac. And then also some scientists found this connection and said, oh, I found the proof, which it turns out is not actually proof, but like, initially, they were like, we figured it out that it really works. Now I understand the, uh, the boar saliva connection. Yeah. I also have to say, I know pheromones are real, but doesn't it still to you or to me? Um, I don't want to make you seem as dumb as i am but no no i i still believe it oh whenever

anyone brings up pheromones it still sounds like some made-up thing that a pickup artist came up with and i think they kind of are like it's it exists and also like for one thing i would believe in them a lot more if you could see like cartoon wavy lines for them. Yeah. Yeah. Wavy lines. But also it's basically every belief about aphrodisiacs. It's people saying like, I heard about a chemical. And then that doesn't actually necessarily change a human's entire behavior. Like that's kind of a leap from there. Okay.

That's fair. That makes me feel better about things. Yeah. That's fair. That makes me feel better about things. Yeah. Because before there was any checking of chemistry, there were just a bunch of European guys saying truffles make you good at sex stuff. Yeah. In the 1800s, there was a French gourmand named Jean-Anthe Brouillat-Savarin.

He said, quote, whoever says truffle utters a great word, which arouses erotic and gastronomic memories among the skirted sex and the bearded sex. End quote. Oh. Which is a flowery version of what we've been saying. But also I do have to say he does. He is right that it evokes, you know, these thoughts. But now it's because I associate it with like a fancy Italian restaurant. you know, these thoughts, but now it's because I associate it with like a fancy Italian restaurant.

So I don't know if it's so much the truffle doing it or that I just mentally I'm like, Ooh, fancy dinner date, cheesy pasta. Right. Yeah. Like the placebo effect and the context we've created is strong. Like that's the maximum amount. This is an aphrodisiac. Yeah. Or even like, it's like a nice bottle of wine. the maximum amount this is an aphrodisiac yeah or even like it's like a nice bottle of wine it's like oh nice bottle of wine i'm probably not alone watching nothing like it's probably an event yeah it's a special occasion you're you're spending money that's also kind of you know a fancy event yeah something's going on and they as far as like that scientific link they thought they found they said oh we found androstanol. If that chemical's here, it must be a thing.

But then there's been like further checking in modern times. And it turns out that Truffles put out a whole set of compounds and androstanol is probably not the important one. There was a chemist named Thierry Toux at the Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse in France. He did an experiment where they offered pigs a choice. They offered them either androstenol or all of the other compounds released by truffles. And they always went to the other ones. They were not interested in the androstenol. That makes sense. I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't, I don't know the science of it, but I'm like, oh, yes. Okay. Sure. That's not the actual aphrodisiac. It's whatever this combination of overwhelming chemicals is specifically for pigs. So they poop it out. Exactly. Yeah. Which is also so disconnected from humans mating. That's, there's a lot of gap there. Yeah.

There's a lot of gap there. Yeah. Nothing to do with us. There's no evolutionary advantage to making people want to have sex more for the plant. Right. Yeah. The fungus. Yeah.

It doesn't care. The fungus. Jesus. Sorry. It's okay. Sorry. I don't mean to be weird about it. It's just like.

No, you're supposed to educate me. That's the whole point. I just have not said the word fungus doesn't really appear organically in my vocabulary. I'm realizing. Same. Yeah. And you've been reading about it. And yeah. There's also in 2010, a team of European geneticists decoded the genome of black truffles.

They found all the genetic information of them. black truffles. They found all the genetic information of them. And they found that the core instructions that they contain for making a pheromone or a hormone is to make dimethyl sulfide. Like androstenol actually varies by soil and situation, but that and further studies have found like the key compound for attracting pigs is dimethyl sulfide. And that has kind of really no relationship to human sexuality. Like it's even this myth and first scientific thing they found, it's not really what's going on. That's very interesting. And I've also very much respect for those scientists for taking the time and figuring that out. It's cool.

Yeah. I'm glad they probably did many other genomes first and then got around to black truffles. So good job. Probably not the most important, but look, it's there. Right. They wanted a trip to Italy. They deserved it. I hope the scientists got to go to France. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I feel like many of them were already there too. Like I, with some products, like, like we were talking about pepper being taken by colonizers from across the world, like some of these truffles were already there. They didn't have to seize them from other places. So that's good. It's a good thing.

Yeah, that's good. As far as these things go, it could be a lot worse. Yeah. Yeah. And then yeah. And then beyond like these specific studies of truffles and pigs and genetics, in general, aphrodisiacs are kind of a myth across the board. And I'm going to link a few things about it, especially from BBC Future. Also, if people have heard the episode we did about chocolate, we talked about how chocolate

is kind of like this. There are people in blogs that have said, hey, it has like one chemical or thing in it that relates to people some way, but you would need like such massive amounts of it and specific intake of it for it to like actually change how you behave. Sure. I mean, that's the type of that's the type of chocolate consumption me and Kathy are doing. But for everyone else, so much of that is pseudoscience.

And like, I think as a rule, if anything, like historically is meant to be an aphrodisiac, almost never is. Yeah. Just as a rule, because it's almost more, I would argue it's, it's a more powerful aphrodisiac that we do associate truffle with fancy date night. Absolutely. You know? Yeah. Yeah. There are like psychological markers that we've come up with in our culture.

For sure. Yeah. And those are actually fun. Like the brain is a very powerful sexual organ. Like that actually is a very, probably a functional aphrodisiac in the ways that we would ascribe to whatever hormone we're kind of making up. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And like a date night is so much more in the mind of a pickup artist guy, labor, huge quotes with my hands. Like it's like, it's not a magic potion. It's like, Oh, I actually have to talk for an hour and like, like be someone other humans want to be around.

Oh, geez. Yeah. It's like, oh, oh, guess what? Women will, you know, be interested if you are romantic and like engaging and fun. Like, yeah. You know, like any human being. No, I need a dirt muffin, a dirt muffin. That'll do it. D dirt muffin. That'll do it. Instantly. Off of that, we are going to a short break, followed by a whole new takeaway. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

The JV Club with Janet Varney is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. And then there's this one other takeaway for the main show. This is about a myth about truffles that I had not heard before researching. But takeaway number three. heard before researching but takeaway number three thanks to scientists studying chemistry and meteorology we are pretty sure that truffles benefit from thunder what there was like a long running especially ancient belief that truffles either were boosted in their growth or totally grew from thunder.

And that might be like indirectly accurate because lightning strikes do actually help them grow. How? It's pretty weird. Does it like make more nitrogen in the soil or something? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Oh. Good. No, please. No, explain much. Yeah. Oh. Good. No, please.

No, explain this to me. It turns out that we'll cover the myth later, but what happens is lightning strikes boost the growth of truffles because there are chemicals called nitrates that are a key source of food for them. And when lightning starts happening in the atmosphere, modern studies say that it discharges electricity that breaks the bonds of atmospheric nitrogen. And then that releases different compounds, including nitrates, that joins with water to fall to Earth in precipitation and then fertilizes the soil and helps truffles grow. Wild, especially because saying a sentence like lightning helps truffles grow, It feels insane. But I love it. That's great. I love that there's science behind it. Greeks had a beat on this. They didn't really understand it or understand truffles at all,

but they had observed truffle growth being like stronger in particularly stormy seasons and places. After thunder, the thunder fortifies it. You know, it's, it reverberates through the roots, makes it strong. I get it. If I was, if I was in ancient times and I didn't know what nitrogen in the air was, I would fully associate like the boom of thunder with the the round things that need fortification. Right. Yeah. The truffles are now stronger. They're kind of cloud shaped. I get it. Look, I can't explain it, but I get it. Oh, cloud is a more romantic comparison than muffins, I think. That's very nice.

Dirt clouds. Like if I was offered cloud pasta at the restaurant, like now we're talking. Oh, cloud pasta. Great. I don't know what cloud pasta is, but if you could come up with something that you know is that you could go so viral on tiktok yeah boy i should i'll get in the kitchen we'll do that then we'll do a joint one showing people the italian beef pizza like welcome back to the food tiktok that i run now yeah great innovations in food technology. Yeah. Yeah.

And like for thousands of years, people have said like thunder boost truffles. That's a thing. And one of the earliest observations is an ancient Greek botanist named Theophrastus who lived in the 300s BC. He said that in North Africa, people observed seasonal thunder increasing truffle growth. And then the ancient Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, who lived 20s to the 70s AD, Pliny said that when there have been showers in autumn and frequent thunderstorms, truffles are produced, thunder contributing more particularly to this development. It's amazing with this gathered, dug up secret food that they sussed out this phenomenon. Like they noticed that there were more of them.

I also just love the thought that we are eating a food that Pliny the Elder was also eating. Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah. I know that that's how food works, that like, of course, they were also eating bread and cheese. were also eating bread and cheese but like truffles feel so weird and specific that this imagining this link of you know thousands of years right you know a thousand plus years is just it's kind of interesting it's like surreal because also to me maybe because i only i learned about truffles as an adult you know moving to a place it feels very modern i'm like oh we just all discovered i discovered truffles six years ago so we all discovered truffles six years ago yeah it's like if he had oreos or something like oh how'd you get that that's mine like like what if you found out that like cleopatra loved like pesto on her pasta. Yeah. You're like, what?

That's how it feels, even though obviously truffles are a fungi that have been around. Yeah, exactly right. And this is not even the only place where people were feeling this. Apparently also there's some desert truffles in the Negev Desert in the Middle East. And Bedouin people there have a name for those truffles and the word means thunder fungus. Whoa, that's so much cooler than dirt muffin. Thunder fungus? That's an energy drink or something. We got that. Yeah. Great. Yeah. You know how now they're doing mushrooms in coffee because they think that you know like chagachino have you seen those so i oddly i am also not that into eating like regular

mushrooms i truffles pretty good but like regular mushrooms i don't love the texture i'm not so i don't think about eating them much i've never i've never had this but like at like fancy coffee shops i've started to see that they're doing doing mushroom powder lattes because it's supposed to, whatever these special mushrooms are, they energize you and, I guess, give you a boost that's different from caffeine. To me, it seems a little gross, but of course, I'll probably love it. But Thunder Fungi would be a great name for what that is. Yeah, I could see that being on one of those boards where you put in the little white letter, plastic letters, and it's like $8. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

Exactly. These are all $8 lattes. Yeah. You know, turmeric was big a few years ago, and I feel like the next one is going to be mushroom. And I like the idea that these things come in cycles too, because like this truffles and thunder belief, it's sort of shrank a little bit as the Greeks and Romans went away. But then in the Renaissance, people brought it back, like the writings got translated and kept in print by Arabic scholars. And then Europeans like Bartolomeo Platina in the 1400s and Castore Durante in the 1500s repopularized the idea because they were like, everything the Romans said is good.

And this is something they say is that truffles are thunder. I love that. That's so funny and smart. They were right. They weren't. I mean, the thunder was a little off, but like they weren't wrong. Yeah. And I never think about fungus, but like I'll link also a separate study here. This is covered by National Geographic, but it was done in Japan. A group at Iwate University in Japan looked into a Japanese farmer belief that lightning benefits all mushrooms and like they all thrive in it. mushrooms and like they all thrive in it. And so in 2010, a team at this university bombarded mushrooms with electricity and they found that it more than doubled their yields. Like they reproduced a lot faster. Uh, and so there's like all kinds of lightning and thunder connections

to fungus that, uh, I never think about, but people have been thinking about it for thousands of years. Good for them. Yeah. And I, maybe I'll try the latte. I don't know if I'm presented with it. I remember the first time I saw it, I was in like Portland where my husband is from and I was like, this is, oh, what? And I was like laughing. I was like a mushroom in coffee. This is so gross. This will never catch on.

And then I saw it at like a different shop. And then I like, now this shop in LA that we go to like has it outside. And I'm like, oh no, is this, people must be buying this. People must be doing this. This must be happening. In spite of me, this is happening. What if like it also spreads because of storms in your region right like also yeah lightning is spreading the chagachino the owner's like change the menu i don't know why i don't know why i just folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to dana schwartz for supporting my efforts

to root around in the earth and find those dirt muffins, which is also a name I'm carrying with me from her. Dirt muffins. Love it. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is a couple stories of ancient truffles and a story of European truffle diplomacy. Visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of almost 10 dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring truffles with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, truffles are an underground fungus in a mutual relationship

with plant roots. Takeaway number two, we're pretty sure truffles are not an aphrodisiac, thanks to scientists sequencing the truffle genome and other scientists analyzing boar saliva. And takeaway number three, scientists studying chemistry and meteorology have confirmed the ancient belief that truffles benefit from thunder. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guest. She's great. Dana Schwartz is a number one New York Times bestselling author. Her novel, Anatomy, A Love Story, is out now, and you can pre-order its sequel. It's called Immortality, A Love Story. It's out February

2023. Dana also hosts a wonderful podcast called Noble Blood from iHeartRadio. It's about stories of rulers and kings and nobles and other people who are worth humanizing and worth discovering the truth of. And of course, follow her at Dana Schwartz. that is the name Dana Schwartz, with three Zs on the end. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. One of them's a fantastic book. It is called Truffle, A Global History by Harvard lecturer and director of the Umbra Institute, Zachary Nowak. Also leaned on work by Stanford University of Biology professor Kabir Pei. Further material from the New York Times, Atlas Obscura, The Guardian,

find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering

on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show about the Acadians on the House of Savoy and everything else. And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.