Got a love for those fancy truffle fries available on every trendy menu, ever? Well, someone’s got your obsession beat: The largest white truffle sold at an auction on Saturday for $61,250. We're talking about basically a giant fungus. The owner hoped for a million, but I guess no one loves truffles that much. Weighing in at 4.16 pounds, this lumpy beauty was found in the Umbrian region of Italy, owned by the Balestra Family of Sabatino Truffles, and bought by a Taiwanese gourmand who phoned in his bid, which is a thing you can do, I guess.
So, how big is this monstrous truffle exactly? Business Insider says that it’s slightly smaller than an American football—large enough to "feed a party for 300-400 truffle dinners.” The runner-up, a white truffle that was half the size, was sold in 2010 for $417,200. Yup. A chunk of fungus was sold for almost half a million dollars. Oh, you fancy people with money, I will never understand why you would spend that much cash on something that makes other food taste moldy, when Nutella is just a few bucks.
According to Business Insider, the auction house says the Balestra family is going to donate the proceeds to charities, “including Citymeals-on-Wheels, a local group to feed the hungry, and the Children’s Glaucoma Foundation.”
After all is said and done, I guess we should give truffles a little more credit.
Images: Getty Images; The Mushroom Man/Twitter
