A giant white truffle dug up in Tuscany, Italy and weighing 1.497 kilograms was sold at auction today, setting a new world record truffle price when billionaire businessman and Macau casino owner Stanley Ho paid $330,000 for the mushroom.
The truffle was unearthed last week in Palaia, Italy, about 40 kilometres from Pisa, by the father-and-son truffle hunting team of Cristiano Savini and his father Luciano and their dog, Rocco. The
auction was held simultaneously at Ho's Grand Lisboa hotel in Macau, as well as in Florence, Italy and London, England.
Famed chef Brillat-Savarin once praised the truffle as
the diamond of the kitchen.
The truffle bests the previous Guiness World Record truffle from Croatia, which weighed 1.3 kg. The prized truffles, used by haute cuisine chefs, can bring up to $11,155 a kilogram in Rome but are usually much smaller, weighing in at 30 to 80 grams.
Maybe it's time to look for a new job.
