HIGH PRICES
These are a few old stories about crazy high prices paid for truffles some of which are well known in the restaurant world but are amusing and never cease to amaze.
In 2010 the Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho bought two pieces for $330,000 that weighed 2.87 pounds.
Apparently an anonymous bidder from Hong Kong who might have been a “‘famous Chinese writer’” called into a white truffle auction by satellite phone at a castle in Italy’s Piedmont region and paid $120,000 (three times the price of gold) for two pieces weighing a total of just over 1 kilo.
In 2012 Jay-Z paid more than $20,000 at Alba’s local truffle haunts, traders thought that he could affect their market as he did Cristal champagne.
And the crude but repeated story of rapper P. Diddy who once demanded, “shave that bitch” regarding a truffle to New York-based French chef Daniel Boulud.
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