It’s easy enough (if pricey) to pick up truffle oil at any grocery store; some neighborhood restaurants even feature truffle oil fries on their menu as a sort of “elevated” pub fare. The flavor comes from the more widely available black truffle (or more likely a synthetic version), and it’s made the truffle something of a mainstay for mainstream restaurants and even home cooks looking to expand their flavor profiles.

But the real thing, the truffle that goes for upwards of $100 per ounce, is the much more rare (and impossible to synthesize) white truffle, a variety that only grows under very particular circumstances (thus, the scarcity and high prices): underground, in the root system of thick forests, in a certain part of the Italian countryside and only during certain months of the year (usually October through January).