Eight hundred dollars a pound for a truffle might sound absurd if you’re thinking chocolates, but switch gears to the fungal variety and the price tag starts to make more sense. After all, the black truffle isn’t just any old mushroom – in fact, it’s not a mushroom at all.
   A rare type of fungus that grows entirely underground in a symbiotic relationship with oak and hazelnut trees, Tuber melanosporum is usually only found in parts of France and Italy, where a drop in production and a growth in demand has kept prices high. Specific soil, climate and precipitation requirements previously made cultivating black truffles exclusive to Europe, but after finding these conditions were also present in North Carolina, a Florida businessman’s new company is hoping to transform 200 acres of farmland into the country’s largest truffle orchard and introduce more Americans to this delicate treat.
   “America is uncharted waters for truffles,” says Charles Warren, executive vice president and chief marketing director of Black Diamond French Truffles Inc. Known as the Perigord truffle because it grows in the Southern Perigord region of France, the black truffle can take five, 10 or even 20 years to grow once the oak and hazelnut trees have been planted with soil taken from truffle-growing areas. The soil conditions have to be just right, but Warren says that what’s most important is that the truffles are cultivated in an area where winter temperatures don’t fall below 15 degrees for three days in a row. “That can wipe out the entire crop for the year,” he says. “The thing with North Carolina is that the conditions are very, very similar to the southwest part of France.”
   In France, urban development and climate change has caused a dramatic drop in truffle production, with this year’s harvest topping at only half of what was expected. While there are already a few truffle orchards in North Carolina, they range from two to five acres in size and have been unable to keep up with demand, mostly supplying truffles to chefs at local and national restaurants. 
   Warren, who lives in Parkland, Fla., but was born and raised in London, tried his first truffle shaved over pasta when he was only 4 years old. “Once you’ve tasted a truffle, it has such a unique taste and aroma that, if you can afford it, you’re going to taste it again,” he says. Warren was working as a professional investment analyst when, on a visit to a restaurant in New Orleans, he noticed that truffles were on the menu. He asked the waiter where they came from and  learned that they’d been cultivated in North Carolina. He and company co-founder Susan Rice saw an opportunity. At 200 acres, Black Diamond will be the largest truffle orchard in the United States. It plans to supply restaurants, retailers, hotels and online customers around the world.
   Early this year, they planted their first 5,500 oak trees on half the farmland and plan to have the remaining 100 acres completely planted by fall 2009. Since they’re expecting the first crop to take five years to grow, in the meantime Black Diamond will be selling other truffle products like truffle oil, truffle butter and truffle pasta.
   Even so, once the truffles grow in the Black Diamond farmland, located in a small town called Vass in central North Carolina, they’ll still be a hard-to-find delicacy. That’s because, being entirely underground, they’re literally hard to find. Truffle hunting is carried out by pigs or dogs that are especially trained to sniff their scent from the ground, though dogs tend to be the preferred method because pigs, like humans, find the truffles quite appetizing and have been known to eat the goods.
   If $800 a pound still sounds a bit steep, the good news is that you’ll rarely need a whole pound of black truffles to enjoy their taste. Typically they’re served grated over dishes such as pastas and risotto. At La Cofradia, a high-end Miami restaurant, for example, Chef Jean Paul Desmaison shaves truffles over a fresh porcini risotto, though he notes the dish isn’t always on the menu. “Maybe for the weekend we’ll do a special,” he says, “and only when they’re in season,” which is from Dec. 1 to March 15. “Truffles are not like any other food. The flavors are very complex. They’re rich and strong, but not too strong, with a bit of an earthy flavor.” Aside from the risotto dish, Desmaison also will offer to shave a little bit of truffle over customers’ pasta dishes or soups. The cost is an additional $25 to $30, depending on the current price per pound.
   In North Carolina, the price, more than the taste, has created quite an interest. The state is the nation’s largest producer of tobacco, a crop that yields about $4,000 per acre. Warren estimates that in its first year, Black Diamond will yield $30,000 to $40,000 per acre. Multiply that by 200 acres and there’s the potential for the transformation of a farming economy that’s traditionally relied on tobacco. Armed with these kinds of numbers and a $25 million investment, Warren and Rice have been able to attract an advisory team that includes George Little, the 2004 North Carolina gubernatorial candidate; attorney Mark Mirkin; and Florida Sen. Jeremy Ring.
   “I think the opportunity is there for this to be the start of a tremendous marketplace in this country,” Ring says. “It goes very well with high-end products, and it’s probably not far off from where Napa Valley and other parts of this country that produce wine were years ago.”
   Until then, what’s a truffle lover to do? Gourmet food markets will sometimes stock white and black truffles when they’re in season. During the off-season, you might find white truffles in a jar or you may find a can of cream of black truffles, like I did recently when I went on a hunt for the gourmet tuber.
   Warren hopes to increase the accessibility and awareness of black truffles by making their products available through their website. “Like anyone else can go online and buy a bottle of olive oil or a case of wine from a winery in California, people will be able to go online and buy a pound of truffles, or half a pound, or truffle oil or butter,” he says. “Five years from now people are going to know more about truffles than what they know today.”
   I, for one, sure hope so, because when I asked about black truffles at my local market, I was told that they only had caramel.