Posted on in Video 49

Fill in the blanks based on what you listen: Part I Just a couple of shavings of black truffles from France, known as black diamonds, can cost hundreds of dollars in a restaurant in Paris. White truffles from Italy can cost more than three times as much. Truffles are a fancy, delicious delicacy -- some say an aphrodisiac -- and ounce for ounce the most expensive food in the world. If you go to France and Italy, as we did, you learn quickly that truffles are under siege because they're becoming scarce. They're being trafficked like drugs, stolen by thugs and threatened by inferior imports from China. He found one already? Where, where, where? He found one? Oh my god. Oh, smell that. In the beautiful Italian province of Perugia, truffle hunters roam the frosty hills with their trained dogs, who sniff out these lumpy mushrooms when they're ripe, one at a time, as they have for centuries. Truffles grow wild, underground, usually at the base of an oak tree. They used to use pigs, but they ate the truffles. "Very rich American people they only see truffles on the table of a very elegant restaurant. They don't see this. Now you know why they are expensive, right?" Olga Urbani may be the only person in the world who goes truffle hunting in a full-length fur coat and a Caribbean tan, but in the truffle business, she can pretty much do what she wants. Her company, Urbani, controls 70 percent of the world's truffle trade. "When you find the truffles, it's like to have a miracle ...