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The Truffle Underground
- A Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and Manipulation in the Shadowy Market of the World's Most Expensive Fungus
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
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Publisher's summary
“The ultimate truffle true crime tale” (Bianca Bosker, New York Times best-selling author of Cork Dork) - a thrilling journey through the hidden underworld of the world's most prized luxury ingredient.
Beneath the gloss of star chefs and crystal-laden tables, the truffle supply chain is touched by theft, secrecy, sabotage, and fraud. Farmers patrol their fields with rifles and fear losing trade secrets to spies. Hunters plant poisoned meatballs to eliminate rival truffle-hunting dogs. Naive buyers and even knowledgeable experts are duped by liars and counterfeits.
Deeply reported and elegantly written, this addictive exposé documents the dark, sometimes deadly crimes at each level of the truffle’s path from ground to plate, making sense of an industry that traffics in scarcity, seduction, and cash. Through it all, a question lingers: What, other than money, draws people to these dirt-covered jewels?
Praise for The Truffle Underground
“Investigative journalist and first-time author Jacobs does a remarkable job reporting from the front lines of the truffle industry, bringing to vivid life French black-truffle farmers, Italian white-truffle foragers, and their marvelously well-trained dogs.” (Booklist, starred review)
“In The Truffle Underground, Ryan Jacobs presents a lively exposé of the truffle industry, reporting on the crimes that ‘haunt the whole supply chain.’... Even if truffles are beyond your pay grade, there is plenty of enjoyment to be had in the sheer devilment portrayed in this informative and appetizing book.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“In elegant, mesmerizing prose, Ryan Jacobs has delivered a forest-to-table page-turner from the outer limits of our foodie culture, a place where colorful farmers, serial dog murderers and famous chefs grapple over a crudely foraged fungus that's traded in parking lots and bars, like heroin. The Truffle Underground is an eye-opener for anyone who's picked up a fork.” (Steve Fainaru, New York Times best-selling author of League of Denial and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter)
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Critic reviews
“Jacobs is an unstoppable and captivating guide through the dark underbelly of the world’s most glamorous fungus. This is the ultimate truffle true crime tale.” (Bianca Bosker, New York Times best-selling author of Cork Dork)
“The thrilling new book The Truffle Underground has all the dirt on this prized fungus.” (Mother Jones)
“The Truffle Underground is as much about human nature as it is about a little-known corner of the food industry. In the guise of a crisply written and engaging story about a rare, astronomically priced delicacy, Jacobs has produced a contemporary morality tale about capitalism and consumerism.” (Los Angeles Review of Books)
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Story
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist tells the story of the self-made billionaire who built the Kendall-Jackson empire from nothing into the biggest-selling brand of premium wines in the U.S. Jess Stonestreet Jackson was one of a small band of pioneering entrepreneurs who put California's wine country on the map. His life story is a compelling slice of history, daring, innovation, feuds, intrigue, talent, mystique, contrarianism, and luck, offering a unique window on the elegant, adventurous, and cut-throat worlds of Jackson's two passions: wine and horseracing.
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Required listening for any wine maker
- By Michael Carr on 01-10-15
By: Edward Humes
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Uncultivated
- Wild Apples, Real Cider, and the Complicated Art of Making a Living
- By: Andy Brennan
- Narrated by: Brett Barry
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the advent of conventional farming methods - which have focused on constant growth, human intervention, and genetic homogeneity - the apple had already grown to become the ubiquitous all-American symbol it is today. Known for their hardiness, ability to adapt to new environments, natural diversity, and plentiful bounty, wildly grown apples were once known as “America’s fruit” throughout the trading world.
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Really good narrator
- By Landon & Sarah on 03-28-24
By: Andy Brennan
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Judgment of Paris
- California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine
- By: George M. Taber
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History houses, amid its illustrious artifacts, two bottles of wine: a 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. These are the wines that won at the now-famous Paris Tasting in 1976, where a panel of top French wine experts compared some of France's most famous wines with a new generation of California wines. Little did they know the wine industry would be completely transformed as a result....
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Only for the wine-obsessed
- By History on 12-01-11
By: George M. Taber
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Methland
- The Death and Life of an American Small Town
- By: Nick Reding
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns across the country, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people.
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Beautifully written, but insubstantial
- By Flavius Krakdaddius on 02-10-10
By: Nick Reding
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Tokyo Underworld
- The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan
- By: Robert Whiting
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945 and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
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A Man with a fork in a world of soup
- By Kindle Customer on 09-01-20
By: Robert Whiting
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Gallo Be Thy Name
- The Inside Story of How One Family Rose to Dominate the U.S. Wine Market
- By: Jerome Tuccille
- Narrated by: Grainger Hines
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Gallo Be Thy Name is the portrait of an American dynasty that rose from poverty in the early 1900s to become the most successful wine company in the world through toil, cunning, and crime. From selling ³Dago Red² to Al Capone during Prohibition to conquering America¹s wine market, and from the Great Depression to the roiling farm labor movements of the 60s and 70s, the Gallos rode the turbulent currents of history to triumph, with iconic brothers Ernest and Julio steering the ship.
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An informative read. Big bite of US history.
- By Robbie on 06-27-18
By: Jerome Tuccille
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Country Driving
- A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China.
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Pass the white rice please
- By Nick on 02-18-10
By: Peter Hessler
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Fast Food Nation
- The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
- By: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
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To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America. Fast Food Nation is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.
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Uncritical alarmist rant
- By Mark Freeman on 12-23-03
By: Eric Schlosser
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The Dinosaur Artist
- Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy
- By: Paige Williams
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In this 2018 New York Times Notable Book,Paige Williams "does for fossils what Susan Orlean did for orchids" (Book Riot) in her account of one Florida man's attempt to sell a dinosaur skeleton from Mongolia—a story "steeped in natural history, human nature, commerce, crime, science, and politics" (Rebecca Skloot).
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More filler than Joan Rivers’ face.
- By Brandi on 03-13-19
By: Paige Williams
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We Are Each Other's Harvest
- Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy
- By: Natalie Baszile
- Narrated by: Tina Lifford
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In this impressive anthology, Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine Black people’s connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. We Are Each Other’s Harvest elevates the voices and stories of Black farmers and people of color, celebrating their perseverance and resilience, while spotlighting the challenges they continue to face. Luminous and eye-opening, this eclectic collection helps people and communities of color today reimagine what it means to be dedicated to the soil.
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Various Voices
- By Peggy Sweeney on 11-06-21
By: Natalie Baszile
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A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear
- The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears)
- By: Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road. When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness.
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Author's Political Biases Shine Through
- By Frank on 12-20-20
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The Lizard King
- The True Crimes and Passions of the World's Greatest Reptile Smugglers
- By: Bryan Christy
- Narrated by: Tony Ward
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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When Bryan Christy began to investigate the world of reptile smuggling, he had no idea what he would be in for. In the course of his research, he was bitten between the eyes by a blood python, chased by a mother alligator, and sprayed by a bird-eating tarantula. But perhaps more dangerous was coming face to face with Michael J. Van Nostrand, owner of Strictly Reptiles, a thriving family business in Hollywood, Florida.
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Snakes on a plane!!!
- By Kim on 02-13-14
By: Bryan Christy
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My Twenty-Five Years in Provence
- Reflections on Then and Now
- By: Peter Mayle
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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A celebration of 25 years of Provençal living - of lessons learned and changes observed - with his final book, Peter Mayle has crafted a lasting love letter to his adopted home, marked by his signature warmth, wit, and humor.
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The narrator ruins it for me.
- By Flossiesmommy on 07-05-18
By: Peter Mayle
What listeners say about The Truffle Underground
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Patricia Ferrer
- 05-05-24
the value of truffles
you will learn the history and value of truffles and the economy around this unique delicacy. enjoyed and recommend!
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- Benjamin Jokisch
- 06-25-19
Fascinating , engaging, well researched
I will never know for sure if the truffle dish I'm eating at a restaurant is authentic... thanks!
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- Robin Bowen4266
- 07-09-23
Interesting story
Really enjoyed the it. Interesting history about truffle hunting and the current (and past) characters involved.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 11-14-21
A candid glimpse of the European truffle industry
Peak behind the curtain of the industry around the most agricultural product. This book shows the highs, lows, temptations and triumphs of Europe's truffle industry. I ask myself if the infant North American truffle industry will follow in their footsteps, or develop without the secrecy which led to their cousins' greatest regrets.
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- dana
- 11-22-19
Interesting, disillusioning story
Good story, those Jacobs’s prose is a bit florid at times
Narrator should leave off with the accents. They were distracting, often inauthentic. Some of the Italian ones sounded like stereotypes from “The Godfather”
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- Mike
- 07-24-19
Never knew the behind the scenes story
Actually never cared about truffles industry and the book really wove a wonderful tale. Deception with intrigue on a mostly unmonitored industry with premium pricing. Uninformed consumers demanding truffles from restaurants whose buyers are hit and miss with industry knowledge make a powder keg situation.
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5 people found this helpful
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- RB Player
- 07-25-19
history I didn't know.
great background. had no idea. A lot of time energy and money spent on truffles
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- alan hosch
- 10-13-20
I was enthralled. Couldn't put it down.
Fascination with the subject matter grew with every listen. It's a well written book with an equally exceptional performance.
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2 people found this helpful
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- AnonymousB’ham
- 07-17-21
Fascinating story for foodies
I had no idea about all of the intrigue surrounding the truffle industry. It was an extremely interesting book for me as a foodie.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Baryn BRand
- 01-27-21
Decent story easy to get lost in
craving truffles now I hate truffle "FAKE" truffles and some bad accents blah blah blah...
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1 person found this helpful