Day...whatever...



click this line if you can't hear the MIDI

The world's most expensive truffle has caused nothing but tortelloni since it was discovered to be rotting in a London vault earlier this week.

A London restaurant bought the tuber at auction last month for $52,000. The owners secured it in a paper bag, then placed it in the safe for...um...safe-keeping.

Wouldn't the refrigerator have been a wiser move, Boofy?

What do I know from Truffleculture? Certainly the safe proved disastrous. The owners forgot all about the fungus until they opened the safe to hand out Christmas bonuses and smelled it rotting in the back.

How big was it?

852 grams or 1.9 pounds for those countries insistent on making the rest of the world do things THEIR way.

Why that's (counts on fingers for a while) about $61/gram or (counts some more. Boofy runs out to get himself a cup of coffee while he waits) about $27,370/pound. Wow. That's even more expensive than sushi.

When informed of the disaster, Alan Greenspan, Head of the Federal Reserve, commented, "Oi vey! That thing dropped faster than the dollar. Glad I put my money on the shrimp."

The truffle's size impressed even the Italians, a country populated with many bearing well-endowed fungus.

Authorities are at a loss to understand why the Brits would treat a fungus so shabbily. The Italian government has filed a lawsuit at The World Court in the Hague calling this a clear case of Anglo Fungal Aggression.

"They're just jealous 'cause they're such lousy cooks," Italian spokesman Catalone Calamari declared in his petition. "And they don't get the difference between marjoram and oregano either!"

When informed of the truffle's demise, Florence's fungal fanciers, the Florentine Association for the Rejuvenation of the Truffle (FART), requested the truffle be returned for burial in the hope that it would sprout an even bigger one next year.

How much bigger?

You know...BIGGER. Ahem...FART spokesman, Pasto Fagiola stated, "This truffle ain't no trifle. We have no record of a fungus this large. It breaks the mold. One of our members has already written a requiem poem in it's honor and another will sing Ave Maria at it's interment."

Where they gonna bury it, Boof?

Well, they WERE going to bury it under a tree believed to have been planted by Italy's famous 15th century navigator Amerigo Vespucci. British authorities agreed, there being plenty of eight by ten color glossies of the thing complete with lines and circles and arrows, each bearing a paragraph on the back explaining what each was to be used as evidence against the London restauranteur.

You say 'WERE'. Has something happened?

I'm glad you asked, for it gives me the perfect lead-in to cut to our correspondent in the field, Chocolata Almond Cookie, live at the scene of a new gnocchi in the kerfuffle. Chocolata what can you tell us?

It's been nothing but stromboli in Florence tonight. FART's plans were cut short midway through the first shovelful by Valasquez Columbo, descendent of the discoverer of the West Indies. Sr. Columbo has filed suit on behalf of the Gazpacho Cabal insisting the fungus be planted under a Genoese tree reputed to have been planted by Cristoforo himself, screeching, "Grandpapa was there first!". Sr. Columbo also insists that the United States change it's name, that both continents follow suit and that Columbia call itself Vespucciland.

Analogo Vespucci, great-great-great-great-great-great(you get the idea)-grandson of the usurper tried to calm the situation. But when Sr. Colombo declared Amerigo got the name because he was sleeping with the cartogropher, Sr. Vespucci flipped Sr. Colombo, the universal Italian sign of peace, love, and brotherhood and the kerfuffle was on.

In a scene reminiscent of HBO's hit TV show, The Sopranos, the combatantes held each other at bay bearing wooden spoons of the finest olivewood until the polizia arrived. On hearing the nature of the dispute, even authorities quickly degenerated into pro-Amerigo and anti-Amerigo camps spouting words like fascisti and liberali, spaghetti and linguini, until one enterprising official thought to bring the Polenta Consiglieri into the act. Annoyed to be ignored, the Porcini Consiglieri filed their own protest declaring that in matters fungal they're always forgotten.

Gosh Chocolata, this sounds an incredible mess.

You can bet your cannolis with that statement, Foofy!

Where's the matter stand, Chocolata?

At the moment we've a manicotti full of pissed-off Italians holding the dead truffle hostage until a neutral historian can be located. All wait on tenterhooks fearing the ancient rivalry between pigs and poodles is shortly to rear its ugly head. Back to you, Boofy.

And now a word from our sponsor. You can turn off the midi now.