

Hocus-Pocus, and a Beaker of Truffles (2007) - myrrh
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/dining/16truf.html?pagewanted=all

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mistercow
>I glumly pulled all my truffle oil from the restaurant shelves and traded it
to a restaurant down the street for some local olive oil.

So this chef stopped using an ingredient, not because it is unsafe, not
because it tastes bad, or doesn't work well in recipes, but because what? It's
synthetic? It's "full of chemicals" (unlike other ingredients, I suppose,
which are made of ectoplasm, luminiferous æther, and the wishes of children)?
Because it's (allegedly) changing public perception of truffles?

He _liked_ the way this ingredient tasted, even describing it as "expressive",
but as soon as he found out it was "fake", he started assigning attributes
like "one dimensional".

This just seems completely absurd to me.

~~~
gammarator
Would you be as likely to order "truffle mac & cheese" at a hipster restaurant
if it instead said "mac & cheese with artificial truffle flavor?"

The point is to correct the false but general perception that truffle oil is
in any way derived from fancy mushrooms. If people like the flavor and still
want to eat it, that's fine, but right now it's used to give an air of faux
luxury.

~~~
stevesearer
I used to work at a movie theater with a guy that asked patrons if they wanted
butter flavoring on their popcorn for this reason. It wasn't butter so he
wouldn't call it butter.

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lafar6502
I dont understand what's the problem with truffles. I mean, is it impossible
to grow them on farms? I don't believe you can buy only wild growing truffles
found by trained pigs. If this were so, truffle would be an extinct species
long time ago.

~~~
gwern
> I mean, is it impossible to grow them on farms?

Pretty much, unless you define 'farms' as 'acres and acres of trees you hope
you can harvest some truffles from':
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truffle#Cultivation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truffle#Cultivation)
(Makes sense, though - if they were easy to raise on farms, they'd probably be
much cheaper and would not be famous. Just another kind of mushroom.)

~~~
pazimzadeh
Have you ever tasted truffles?

I don't know if you are right or not with regards to truffles, but rarity and
quality does sometimes correlate, such as with saffron and sturgeon caviar.

