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Mother of All Truffles Tours NYC in Search of $$$
By
John Del Signore
Published Nov 14, 2008
Modified Nov 15, 2008
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By
John Del Signore
Published Nov 14, 2008
Modified Nov 15, 2008
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You'll recall how excited everyone was—EVERYONE—last October when Le Cirque owner Sirio Maccioni bought a "perfectly round, pristine" 1.1 pound white truffle for $7,000. Child's play! Behold the 2.15 lbs white truffle that has just arrived on our shores from Alba, Italy. It's been acquired by Mikuni Wild Harvest, whose representative Tyler Gray writes:
A very excited Italian gentleman named Francesco the Forager stumbled / sprinted out of the forest mid afternoon in a haze of deliria and joy, grasping tightly to his most precious find ever...a 2LB WHITE ALBA TRUFFLE....2.15 lbs to be exact & by far the largest White Truffle to land in the USA in the last 3 years.
Francesco said that he has never ever found a truffle by this tree before, but he could smell it under ground & so he thought it might be big….he was very pleasantly surprised....I think my hands might be shaking too if I were to stumble across this rare treasure.
Now Gray is escorting the gigantic tuber on a whirlwind tour of New York City, and has received an offer of $11,000 from an unnamed New York restaurant. A truffle of this size could yield shavings for at least 140 dishes. A fierce bidding war has broken out, and Gray tells us that "it just left Daniel, on its way to Masa & Nello, then over to Gilt…I’ll let you know what happens." Sorry to send you off on your weekend with such a cliffhanger, but check back Monday to see what kitchen this freak of nature ends up in!
Tagged
bidding
giant
new york city
NY
restaurant
truffle
white
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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