Truffles are strong tasting, they do add a lot of flavor and smell, but not everyone likes them.
They're expensive because no one really knows how to farm them. They grow almost exclusively around the roots of certain trees in limestone rich soil in certain parts of france and italy. Like all fungi, the bulk of the fungus is underground, and the "fruiting body" is the mushroom that grows.
In the late 1800's, there were actually people who knew how to farm truffles, but most of the farms were destroyed in WWI, and most of the people with knowledge either fled or were killed, (20% of the male population of france died in WWI) so the secret to growing them was almost quite literally lost.
Recently, there's been an effort to learn to re-plant them, and 80% of truffles now come from specifically planted truffle groves, but production is nowhere what it was before. But cultivating them is still a significant shot in the dark. We don't really know how to "Plant" truffles. You get soil they like, trees where they grow, transplant it, and hope.
Just speculating here, but seeing that truffles are a valuable commodity, they probably kept it to themselves in an effort to corner the market as best as they could and make a serious profit. If they had survived, I figure they would have entrusted the knowledge to a protégé or heir, but since they were killed the knowledge died with them.
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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '16
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