Ian Purkayastha Biography

At age 18 Purkayastha has appeared on the Manhattan food scene by peddling one of the culinary world’s most prized ingredients. Truffles.
Purkayastha grew up in Arkansas in a family of adventurous eaters. When he was 14 he ate some wild mushrooms that his uncle found in the woods near his parents’ home. Soon he was digging up the forest looking for edible fungus. A year later he tried truffles for the first time and was hooked. “All I could talk about was truffles and food” he recalls. “It’s not the kind of thing the average high school kid loves.”
In 2010 Purkayastha sold $900000 worth to high-end restaurants like Daniel Jean-Georges and Per Se where dinner tabs routinely hit $200 per person.
Purkayastha also discovered the dirtier side of the truffle trade. Some competitors pressured him to raise his prices; others passed off cheaper Chinese truffles as more pungent higher quality black winter truffles.

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