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As orchards go, truffle orchards are upside-down and backwards. The magic happens beneath the oak and hazel trees, where a richly flavored mushroom sprouts from fungal colonies laced about the trees' roots. They're called black Perigord truffles, or tuber melanosporum.

These truffles are notoriously hard to cultivate, even in France, where Perigords orginate. Now, in the rolling hills and clay soils of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, a growing number of farmers are hoping to establish southern Appalachia as the new truffle capital of the world.

Below is an excerpt from Adam Davidson's latest New York Times Magazine column, "London Is Eating New York's Lunch." Read all of Davidson's Times Magazine columns here.

Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic.

Did Mitt Romney win the Michigan primary? Or did he merely survive it? That really depends on your perspective.

As recently as a few days ago, Romney was trailing in the polls. And as recently as Tuesday afternoon, Romney staffers were talking down expectations. But Romney won a clean victory on Tuesday night. He won handily in the Detroit metro area, his home turf, but he also ran strong in more contested counties, like Livingston and Jackson, to the west.