The Italian white truffle season is ramping up, and despite what's said to have been a good season, prices - in New York at least - are higher than last year. In NYC, that means $200 for a baked potato with truffle on top. Dan Dorfman in the New York Sun explains:

"The newest wrinkle in this year's truffle season — a traditional three-month annual dining experience that kicks off in October and runs to around Christmas — is the debut of a $200 baked potato at the Four Seasons restaurant that's sprinkled with white truffles. That's the highest price it has ever charged for this item and is up about 33% from the $150 it charged for the fancy spud a year ago. Why $200? Because, as one Four Seasons captain explains it, "Try buying truffles; they're running us $2,500 a pound." Last year, they ran about $2,000 a pound. An expenditure of $200 for a baked potato may seem like a prohibitive price, but not so at the Four Seasons. "We're selling a lot of them," says co-owner Julian Niccolini. The restaurant, he says, is also enjoying brisk sales on portions of pasta and risotto served with a shaving of truffles. Each of these dishes also runs $200."

Does that even resemble value for money? I suspect that the Four Seasons is a pretty upmarket restaurant, but US$200 is about NZ$300, and you can buy a lot of potatoes for that... On the other hand, the market for truffles in New York looks very interesting from a grower's perspective.

"Nicola Civetta, the amiable owner of Primavera, the city's premier power Italian restaurant, estimates diners who can afford this delicacy — essentially a fleshy edible potato-shaped fungi that grows underground and is sniffed out by pigs or specially trained dogs — will spend between $20 million and $25 million this year on a variety of truffle dishes at upscale eateries throughout the Big Apple. He figures Primavera will serve about 2,000 portions of truffles this season, equivalent to sales of between $75,000 and $100,000. Demand, he notes, continues to grow with each passing season. "I've had around 20 people a night asking me for truffles for about a week," he says."They just can't seem to wait."

I'd like to supply some of that demand... All I need is some white truffle.