Brief Black Truffle Fever

November 13th, 1998. Hundreds of adult inhabitants of four small towns in the U.S. suddenly start feeling sick, showing symptoms like abdominal pain, muscle cramps, headache and fever. Most of those affected by this unexpected illness overcrowded the local medical centres of the small municipalities and nearby cities. Worryingly, the symptoms seemed to match those of typhoid fever, which made the CDC recommend immediate quarantine to the different clinics and physicians. However, there was no official warning issued to the public, possibly to avoid panic, although conspiracy theorists believe otherwise.

About twelve hours after the first patients appeared the symptoms of everyone affected by the unknown disease started to vanish. Even those individuals who would usually take more time to fight an illness, like immunodeficient patients, recovered at approximately the same speed. The first analysis of blood and tissues didn’t show the presence of any strange toxin, virus or bacterial infection, and there was no strange substances on the tap water or the food consumed, so it was officially recorded as an allergic reaction to unknown, possibly airborne, particles. It had been a weird and brief epidemic, but everything promptly returned to relative normalcy.

However, after three days, everybody who had showed symptoms began to develop an unprecedented and insatiable craving for black truffle and similar flavours. Even people who had never tasted anything carrying the particular aroma of this fungus felt instinctively attracted to products that included it, looking for the most pure form of the ingredient.

This craving made most people lose control if they didn’t manage to consume the truffle after a few hours. Two devout vegans were found eating raw meat just because it had been infused with the aroma of the expensive mushroom. A young chemical student created a gas explosion trying to synthesise an artificial substitute. Robberies in gourmet shops and fancy restaurant kitchens started to be reported as the least wealthy affected individuals desperately looked for ways of satisfying their new urges.

For two straight days the police of the towns of Provincetown, Plympton, Little Compton, Gorham and neighboring cities had to fight this weird criminal spree, who ended as suddenly and as mysteriously as it had started. Only the most quick-witted entrepreneurs had managed to create a very profitable but short-lived black truffle black market, and it collapsed immediately after. Everyone affected was puzzled by the peculiar occurrence, but the news organisations seemed reluctant to cover it and the buzz soon died off in mainstream media.

Some internet forums and webpages, however, kept sharing information on the subject and their users continued researching this enigmatic plague. Several theories arose, with two of them gaining special support and popularity in very different communities. The conspiracy lovers believed this mystery to be a side-effect of a secret biological weapon tested by the American government. Other groups think that the responsible party had been the spores of a particular fungus, a close relative of the melanosporum species, that might have developed through mutation properties similar to the ones of the Cordyceps genus. Whatever the real reason for this particular epidemic or its significance, only one thing is clear: black truffle can be a hell of a drug.