The truffle industry is a big scam. Not just truffle oil, everything

January 1, 2023 9:38 AM

I hope nothing in 2023 makes you as angry as Matt Babich is about truffles.
posted by Etrigan (98 comments total)

But..what about my "Premium Mediocre" lifestyle?
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-life-of-maya-millennial/
posted by pthomas745 at 9:48 AM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

Oregon truffles. I cannot vouch for any of this information.
posted by neuron at 9:52 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Contrary to what the Oregon tourism board would have you believe, Oregon truffles taste of nothing. Same with chinese substitutes.
posted by Keith Talent at 9:58 AM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

Oregon truffles taste of nothing

Good to know. Not surprised. Thanks.
posted by neuron at 10:04 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Metafilter:merely decorative, tasteless, and worthless tubers.
posted by lalochezia at 10:05 AM on January 1, 2023 [15 favorites]

"Everything you think you know about truffles is a lie"

The article mentions truffle-flavored chocolate and now I'm really confused, as chocolate makers call some of what they make truffles. So what is a chocolate truffle? Does any bon-bon qualify? Do they really look like the mushrooms? Not to me.
posted by Rash at 10:06 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Contrary to what the Oregon tourism board would have you believe, Oregon truffles taste of nothing.

Which ones? There are four different species here
posted by Dr. Twist at 10:13 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Chocolate truffles generally have nothing to do with mushrooms. One of my friends says the name is just about the soft (cream? butter?) interior, so he just puts a little cocoa power on them instead of having (as is usual) a hard chocolate exterior. Tasty, and less work. Most commercial truffles have a hard chocolate exterior and a soft interior which might or might not have chocolate. I am in favor of both kinds.

There's an old-fashioned confection called a truffle which is layers of dark and milk chocolate. I remember it from the 60s or so, and I've seen it since, but it's rare.

I don't like most "truffle products", but I believe I've had a slice of real truffle once-- a single tnin slice as part of a tasting menu at a good restaurant. I don't remember the season, or even the flavor, but I liked it.

As for the anger level in the OP, I'd say that compared to a great deal of the internet, the author is barely getting started.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:23 AM on January 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

Oregon truffles taste of nothing

Well fine. More truffle beer for me then.
posted by CrystalDave at 10:26 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

When my eldest was a toddler, 25 years ago, we used to shop once a week at an Italian store. And every week, the owner would give her a chocolate with truffle (or perhaps "truffle") in it. We thought it was hilarious that a 2-yo loved truffles, and I'd say if there ever was a place for artificial truffle aroma, it would be in a ball of dark chocolate. The little white pieces of truffle gave some textural contrast to the chocolate, even if they were perhaps actually tasteless.

But other than that, the author is right, and I thought this was common knowledge: always have your truffle shaved directly over your otherwise neutral dish, while you are watching. He mentions pasta with butter. My gran was known to ask for two eggs, gently fried in butter, sunny side up, for her truffle shavings. Both simple and extremely decadent. I don't know how she knew, but she generally had decadent tastes.
posted by mumimor at 10:27 AM on January 1, 2023 [9 favorites]

I feel like these kinds of articles need citations and some kind of peer review. I no longer trust these kinds of articles.
posted by interogative mood at 10:29 AM on January 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

It's kind of interesting to see the rage against the synthesized flavor compound even while acknowledging it is the exact same compound found in truffles.

Look, I know artificial vanilla extract is not as good as real vanilla extract, but I also know vanillin is the primary source of flavor in vanilla, and I know that my tongue cannot tell what precursors or source it came from (even though it can tell real from artificial, because the real stuff has hundreds of other compounds too). So I use it the vanillin-in-alcohol stuff when I know the subtle complexity of real extract will be lost, bc it's like 10x less expensive.

Anyway, this guy seems to not really understand the the compound is the same (and hence tastes the same), regardless of where it came from. I wish I could tell him that he convinced me to go buy some "fake" truffle oil, bc prior to reading this I didn't realize it's the exact same compound, and avoided it. I'm sure he's right that fresh truffles are better, but I don't think that means a simplified version is bad or useless.

Maybe it's for the best that I can't tell him, as the apoplectic rage it would send him into may kill him.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:39 AM on January 1, 2023 [17 favorites]

A cousin of mine once gave me some "truffle" oil; I uncapped it, took a whiff, re-capped it, and tossed it out sometime later. It didn't smell to me like "gas" (I'm not sure what exactly Babich means when he refers to that, but the bit about petroleum makes me think that he's referring to gasoline), it just didn't seem like something that I really wanted to add to my scrambled eggs or whatever.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:42 AM on January 1, 2023

I don't like to huff fish sauce either but I know a few drops of it is amazing in my Thai curry. I wonder if the key problem is that people use too much of the truffle oil.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:45 AM on January 1, 2023 [17 favorites]

The vanilla/vanillin comparison is probably very accurate, including: can tell real from artificial, because the real stuff has hundreds of other compounds too. That is the point. You want the whole complexity, not just the dominant fragrance.

I don't know, there are so many delicious things that don't cost a gazillion, I don't feel the need to truffle up my food with the oil, or add artificial vanilla.
posted by mumimor at 10:52 AM on January 1, 2023 [9 favorites]

Truffle oil is known colloquially as gourmet ketchup.
posted by Keith Talent at 10:52 AM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

So I use it the vanillin-in-alcohol stuff when I know the subtle complexity of real extract will be lost, bc it's like 10x less expensive.

But that's really the point of the article, isn't it? When you use the artificial vanilla extract, you are generally using it as a supporting flavor, you aren't adding some other flavorless part from the plant and telling people hey, I made this vanilla-flavored dish with real vanilla, here you go. I feel like it's a pretty good counter-example to the way truffle flavor is sold.
posted by solotoro at 10:54 AM on January 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

Look, I know artificial vanilla extract is not as good as real vanilla extract

Most of the vanilla tastings I've seen, and my own experience seem to show its a mixed bag at best.
This one from ATK (dunno if non subscribers can see that or not) has real and imitation vanilla all jumbled in the rankings.
posted by Dr. Twist at 10:57 AM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

The synthetic Ortolan extract you can get at Whole Foods is also a scam, nothing at all like the true experience of crunching down on a whole bird (€6000 - €12000 / kg) while hiding from God under a towel.
posted by Pyry at 10:58 AM on January 1, 2023 [98 favorites]

always have your truffle shaved directly over your otherwise neutral dish, while you are watching. He mentions pasta with butter

We went to Italy on our honeymoon and spent an afternoon at a truffle festival in San Miniato, in Tuscany. We walked through a tent filled with truffles for sale, and the aroma was so thick it was almost overwhelming.

At the end were a few food stalls selling mostly simple things — I had buttered pasta with fresh truffles shaved over it. Oh my god. It was insanely good. Like, just about transcendent.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:00 AM on January 1, 2023 [21 favorites]

I'm not sure vanillin is comparable to truffle oil. Experts agree that in baked goods vanillin is indistinguishable from natural vanilla. Whereas most people say truffle oil tastes completely different from real truffles.

(I have never tasted a real truffle myself so I wouldn't know myself.)

It's good to know what one's eating. I like occasionally doing the truffle oil things for kicks, on french fries or whatever. As long as I know it's just fake flavor and not real food, I can enjoy it on its own merits. It's scams I resent.
posted by splitpeasoup at 11:10 AM on January 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

Maybe I'm an outlier, but I knew most of this but still will order truffle x or y, because I like that flavor sometimes. It's not like a real truffle fish, but I'm also not spending $$$$ either
posted by Carillon at 11:11 AM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

Well, I have to admit I was a little surprised to learn that the reason fake truffle flavor smells like petroleum... is because it is synthesized from petroleum.
posted by dusty potato at 11:24 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

While a naive customer will think that "natural" means that the aroma comes naturally from truffles, it could also be derived from a dead pig and still be labeled as "natural."

I get it, he's pointing out that we're all being scammed on this small thing but...

a) we're all being scammed on all other small things as well as several big things
and
b) I don't want to eat flavorings derived from LIVE pigs.
posted by Vatnesine at 11:25 AM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

Always ask restaurant staff if they use truffle flavorings or the real thing: pure truffles. Smell the dish before putting truffles on it and insist that the waiters grate them in front of you.

Yeah, I'm not going to do any of those things.
posted by box at 11:43 AM on January 1, 2023 [16 favorites]

Bacon is a flavoring derived from a dead pig.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:44 AM on January 1, 2023 [15 favorites]

my $.02 - Truffle Oil has been a well known "scammy" upcharge of $2 per side of french fries.

If you like the flavor and don't mind the fee, fine, you are free to be. But do understand it is (generally) olive oil with trace amounts of an additive.
posted by djseafood at 11:49 AM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

He seems to be particularly angry at people who ate something and thought they enjoyed it, the fools.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 11:52 AM on January 1, 2023 [38 favorites]

I think generally, if you see your favorite product on the shelf in the store now comes in truffle flavor, you would probably do well to avoid it.
posted by some loser at 12:04 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Well, I have to admit I was a little surprised to learn that the reason fake truffle flavor smells like petroleum... is because it is synthesized from petroleum.

You'd be surprised but misinformed.
posted by lalochezia at 12:20 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

Well, I have to admit I was a little surprised to learn that the reason fake truffle flavor smells like petroleum... is because it is synthesized from petroleum.

Unless the compound being synthesized from a petroleum base stock has a petroleum like odor of its own, it's not going to smell like petroleum unless it's horrifically impure.
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:38 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

This is one of those wealthy people scams we don't have to be outraged by, right?
posted by Selena777 at 12:47 PM on January 1, 2023 [6 favorites]

WRT how 2,4-dithiapentane comes about (folks are mostly saying "synthesized" here); TFA says both "can be extracted from oil" (which sounds like distillation) and "this petroleum-derived product" which is less precise. The chemical's Wikipedia page talks about "acid-catalyzed condensation" but it may turn off even stalwarts with the whole sentence

It is prepared by the acid-catalyzed condensation of methyl mercaptan, the main aromatic compound in both halitosis and foot odor and a secondary compound in flatulence,[1] with formaldehyde.

And finally, a blog post on this appropriately-named site addresses both the "complexity of the real thing" and counterpoints the "truffle oil has only one aromatic".
posted by achrise at 1:00 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'd like to try the real thing sometime over something like pasta, eggs, or risotto. I avoid the artificial stuff because nearly every time I have something "truffle flavored" it leaves an annoying, persistent aftertaste that can linger for hours, but I hope that good quality truffle wouldn't do that.
posted by indexy at 1:12 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Contrary to what the Oregon tourism board would have you believe, Oregon truffles taste of nothing

In the pre-pandemic era in Portland, Oregon, I had a potluck neighbor who knew where to hunt truffles. Everything in her fridge was truffle flavored. It was so good.
posted by aniola at 1:32 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

There are no white and black winter truffles out of season. They cannot be frozen, cooked, sterilized, packaged, or stored.

To be clear: this is not how fungi work. To be more specific, Babisch is arguing that unlike every other edible fruiting body we know, including other species of Tuber, there is no known way to process or store these two species for any length of time and preserve their qualities in a meaningful sense.

Seems like you couldn't work with research samples then. Seems like you couldn't even fly them out of country. Weird that these reproductive structures hardy for pigs would be more challenging to process than shaggy inkmanes--which literally self-digest while you harvest (gotta cook them fast).

Notice that he doesn't seem aware of farmed Australian truffles (they have no competitors in the soil--they turn out great. am I sure about the ecological implications? ehhh, no. but it sure is weird not to mention them, especially since their seasons are different than the northern hemisphere. )

There are parts of this story that are mostly true, but this guy is either uninformed or selling us something.
posted by Laetiporus at 1:38 PM on January 1, 2023 [22 favorites]

He seems to be particularly angry at people who ate something and thought they enjoyed it, the fools.

I think the piece is quite clear that he is angry at people who mislead those people.
posted by entropone at 1:43 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I read a story about truffle-hunting - maybe here on the Blue? - which said that the aroma and flavour of the best truffles fades rapidly; only the pig who finds it really gets to enjoy it. By the time it has been flown around the world on its private jet to the table of some billionaire, it is already fading.

Or so I remember it, anyway.
posted by clawsoon at 1:57 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Well, that’s true of a lot of fruits and vegetables, even apples, IME.
posted by clew at 2:02 PM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

To be clear: this is not how fungi work. To be more specific, Babisch is arguing that unlike every other edible fruiting body we know, including other species of Tuber, there is no known way to process or store these two species for any length of time and preserve their qualities in a meaningful sense.

Well, all fungi I have tasted have a very different taste when they are preserved, regardless of the method. In some cases, the preserved state might be better than the fresh, so it's not necessarily a value judgement. But the difference is very obvious, even to people who are not very engaged in fungi. And there are other fungi that don't keep well. One year, I went on a manic spree of gathering and preserving mushrooms, and I found that for instance chanterelles loose a lot when preserved (though I have some in the freezer for decorative purposes), whereas puffballs improved quite a bit when dried.

Regarding truffles, I have never, ever tasted a preserved truffle I would pay money for. But each to their own. I would probably not give good money for a truffle that had flown 1000 km either. For that price, you want the optimal experience.

I am very curious about the farmed truffles in Australia and other places. I am even thinking about buying a few oaks that have been inoculated (is this the correct term?) with truffle spores to see what happens.
posted by mumimor at 2:04 PM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

A good way to get many, many, many Oregon truffles is to live in a house that is not correctly sealed against the elements, with plenty of spaces for red squirrels to hide them. Ask me how I know.

(No, I did not eat them.)
posted by klanawa at 2:04 PM on January 1, 2023 [16 favorites]

I'm glad the truffle oil trend has mostly died except for a few terrible Italian restaurants and bad bars that insist on putting it on their fries. I went to a burger place that had truffle fries a couple of days ago and nearly had to walk out since the stench was so bad. I stuck it out and wish I hadn't, the truffle fries were a tell that everything else there would kinda suck.

I've had real truffle several times at 3 Michelin star restaurants and while they're delicious I could never see them being worth several thousand bucks a pound.
posted by mikesch at 2:13 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've had real truffle several times at 3 Michelin star restaurants and while they're delicious I could never see them being worth several thousand bucks a pound.

You are clearly not an orgasmic pig.
posted by clawsoon at 2:19 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

b) I don't want to eat flavorings derived from LIVE pigs.

This thread is moving so fast that my irony detectors might be misfiring, but: you guys know how wild truffles are harvested, right?
posted by Mayor West at 2:22 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

I could never see them being worth several thousand bucks a pound.

Well, you never eat more than a few grams. It's like with saffron. Or vanilla.
posted by mumimor at 2:24 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Reading the linked articles and seeing that truffle oil is a mix of different flavorings.. the real truffles appear to be scam here? Something cheap and cheerful gets one 80% of the way there. To get 100%, a chef must prepare the meal for you in the forested hills of Italy, plucking the truffle from the soil just before dicing it onto the cooling dish. And everything in a restaurant is 90-95% tops.

I think versions of this article are useful (like one recently on cashmere) but only in recalibrating the expectations of people not yet aware of the fakery. Like, we get it. It's still better than burnt toast or whatever he thinks the plebs eat.
posted by Slackermagee at 2:30 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Recently I was offered some "truffle infused" food, and I turned it down almost guiltily, but I've always felt that truffles tasted like sewage. Now I know why.
posted by gallois at 2:50 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

...the main aromatic compound in both halitosis and foot odor and a secondary compound in flatulence...

I do a lot of sleuthing as regards the chemistry of whiskey aromas and flavors. One thing I've learned about the class of organic compounds known as carboxylic acids (aka esters) is that the difference of a couple of carbons in a chain of them can be the difference between the aroma of violet and the aroma of goat. So this neither surprises me nor puts me off.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 2:51 PM on January 1, 2023 [12 favorites]

So

1) I am right to dislike truffles; and

2) maybe I don't really dislike truffles.
posted by amtho at 3:05 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

I've worked with (and therefore, consumed a quantity of...) both black and white truffles. The real things. They do not keep well, true; they are best sold in season; true. The black truffles were grated onto a dish of white asparagus topped with a sabayon using the bits and pieces of truffles after your new prep cook attempts to grate them. They have that deep umami aroma, yep it's right next to funky/flatulent; I don't get gasoline (and I'm a die hard Mosel Riesling fan so I know my petrol loves) but for some folks the "funk" family of smells means a lot of things. The white truffles are more difficult to describe; they're highly aromatic for a few minutes, also umami but more in that primal "Mom smells best" way, because we smelled mum's milk, way back when. Or whatever, they're incredible, and yes they were served as described-- grated onto a plate of simple pasta as we watched, and they were weighed. The best version was the one that paired fresh egg yolk ravioli with black truffle shavings and a very very old Rioja. My god. God's feet, maybe?
Anyway, he's aiming this article at people like my MIL, who falls for this shit all the time.
She's delighted to try something so fancy, then the bottle goes bad or whatever and she moves on to something else. She will never do the math regarding why & how such rare foods can appear at the local grocery store.
posted by winesong at 3:20 PM on January 1, 2023 [13 favorites]

One thing I've learned about the class of organic compounds known as carboxylic acids (aka esters)

AAAGAGHHHH. Nomenclature. I'm diene.


is that the difference of a couple of carbons in a chain of them can be the difference between the aroma of violet and the aroma of goat.

You're triene.
posted by lalochezia at 4:20 PM on January 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

I've had real truffle several times at 3 Michelin star restaurants and while they're delicious I could never see them being worth several thousand bucks a pound.

Didn't someone once say that if garlic were as rare as truffles it would be a hundred times more expensive than truffles?

There are way better flavors out there that are fortunately more widely available.

Truffles fascinate me because because they were once common and successfully cultivated. In 1890 there were 2,000 tons of truffles produced annually. Their current scarcity and status as a luxury product is because all the truffle groves were bombed out in World War I and most of the people with the institutional knowledge needed to raise truffles in given locations were killed.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:27 PM on January 1, 2023 [26 favorites]

If you'd like to see a very touching movie about a man who hunts for truffles in Oregon with his pig, I can only recommend PIG, starring Nicolas Cage (in one of his real acting roles). It's an amazing movie, Cage is beyond excellent in it, and it is indeed about truffle hunting in Oregon.
posted by hippybear at 4:55 PM on January 1, 2023 [14 favorites]

Oh, it's apparently available to stream on Hulu and Kanopy.
posted by hippybear at 4:56 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

I never have used ‘truffle infused’ products. It seems like you’d want to get the real thing or not bother. I was always suspicious of anything labeled truffle in any store which takes SNAP and which has a mostly very low income customer base. It makes no sense to me to sell anything as costly as REAL actual truffles in such place. I pretty much figured it wasn’t real. Now that I know it might smell disagreeable and stink up my place that’d be a hard ‘No!’
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 5:02 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I tried some truffle oil once bc roommate had bought some. It might as well have been canola oil for all the flavor it had. If it's supposed to smell strongly of anything, then that stuff wasn't it.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 5:13 PM on January 1, 2023

It is kind of amazing how many highly desired flavorings are chemically closely related to foul, repugnant, and even poisonous compounds, and may in fact be identical with such compounds only highly diluted.

I seem to be kind of resistant to that effect for whatever reason.
posted by jamjam at 5:32 PM on January 1, 2023

This thread is moving so fast that my irony detectors might be misfiring

Not to worry, the sputtering is temporary.

"Had Rob listened to the pig, he may have been able to prevent the kidnapping (or is it pignapping?)."

That's irony, like bacon
posted by clavdivs at 5:34 PM on January 1, 2023

Bacon is a flavoring derived from a dead pig.

Lisa, honey, are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
No.
Ham?
No.
Pork chops?
Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:54 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

Pigs are quite delicious. *sigh*
posted by hippybear at 6:02 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Pigs are quite delicious. *sigh*

...while pig shit is absolutely vile, which leads me to conclude that pigs are nature's machines for separating the best flavours from the worst flavours.
posted by clawsoon at 6:22 PM on January 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

next you're going to tell me that pumpkin spice doesn't have any pumpkin

or spice
posted by clawsoon at 6:22 PM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

Pigs are apparently so wonderfully, magically delicious, we've started talking about eating them in a thread about fake truffle flavor.
posted by tigrrrlily at 7:06 PM on January 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

It's true, all the spice is sequestered by the navigators for transportation purposes!
posted by Carillon at 7:08 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

which leads me to conclude that pigs are nature's machines for separating the best flavours from the worst flavours.

Indeed
posted by Dr. Twist at 7:25 PM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I am sort-of relieved to know that "regular" truffle oil is actually kinda gross and my nose is not broken. I always thought random "truffle fries" or whatever REEKED of smelly feet, and not the good kind of smelly feet smell in blue cheese, but the really rank kind that you do not want to eat. Okay! I have probably not ever been exposed to real truffle! Maybe they are not actually disgusting!

As I get older I find that synthetic flavorings bother me a lot more; I often used to not be able to taste/smell the difference, but more often now I find the chemical/carrier overwhelms what I'm "supposed" to be tasting. I don't feel like I have a particularly good palate -- I don't really appreciate subtle notes, and I love me a fast food french fry -- but chemical flavors and smells really pop out to me now. There's a bunch of candy that I love, but can't really eat anymore because the artificial flavors are so overwhelming to me now. The other thing that absolutely murders me these days is baking soda as a leavening agent -- all I can taste anymore is the baking soda, which has really wrecked pancakes for me. WHY DON'T I JUST GO LICK A SPOON COATED IN BAKING SODA? Tastes the same. Anyway, I'm willing to believe there's a difference between "real" and "fake" truffle oil, because I did not used to be able to taste the difference between vanilla extract and imitation vanilla extract AT ALL, and now it absolutely dominates the flavor for me. And I hope that real truffles taste nice and earthy and robust, and not like gasoline, which is legit what the truffle oil I've tasted tastes like to me.

Side note, I once had a job in the same industrial park as a place that made imitation flavors/scents. The three worst BY FAR are strawberry, which smells nothing like strawberry but a LOT like sickly sugar and Strawberry Shortcake dolls from the 80s; banana, which turns my stomach to this day partly because it DOES smell a lot like banana, but if the banana were rotting and not in a good banana bread way; and buttered popcorn, which was so unspeakably disgusting that it put me off popcorn FOR AN ENTIRE DECADE. I occasionally gagged in the parking lot when they were making banana or buttered popcorn, and I couldn't eat my lunch on buttered popcorn days. Sometimes I couldn't eat dinner hours later because the smell put me off so much.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:39 PM on January 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

and buttered popcorn, which was so unspeakably disgusting that it put me off popcorn FOR AN ENTIRE DECADE

Fake buttered popcorn flavour can give you popcorn lung, which sounds cute until you hear its scientific name, bronchiolitis obliterans.
posted by clawsoon at 8:07 PM on January 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

>> methyl mercaptan, the main aromatic compound in both halitosis and foot odor and a secondary compound in flatulence

If you'd like to read more about smelly organic chemistry, Max G. Gergel's _Excuse Me Sir, Would You Like to Buy a Kilo of Isopropyl Bromide?_ has you covered. Recommended by Derek Lowe of "Things I Won't Work With" . His blog also turned me on to John D. Clark's Ignition! about super poisonous and reactive rocket fuels. It is back in print.

He hollered up, "Cope, have you got a skunk up there?" My teacher and idol hollered back, "No, it's only Gergel." "Only Gergel" had the odor in his clothes, on his skin and in his hair. He stank of butyl mercaptan. So did the building; so did the graduate students and those so unfortunate as to have had Saturday classes on butyl sulfide day. Copie developed a bit of odor simply living next to the lab and carried it to a faculty meeting where he received tactful suggestions on personal hygiene, and banned the synthesis of mercaptans and sulfides thereafter.

If you end up liking highly energetic chemistry over the very stinky, T. A. Heppenheimer's Facing the Heat Barrier: A History of Hypersonics is great. The X-1 and X-15 were wild, but some of the ideas that didn't get past wind tunnels, test stands or sketch pads are far out: "ACES, Air Collection and Enrichment System" flies into the stratosphere and uses liquid hydrogen fuel to liquify air, then enriches the oxygen out of it to power a rocket to get the rest of the way to orbital velocity.
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 8:20 PM on January 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

There are parts of this story that are mostly true, but this guy is either uninformed or selling us something.

What be doesn’t go into is that most of “Piedmont/Alba white truffle” doesn’t come from there at all. The majority is harvested from the other five or six Italians regions it grows in, plus from the farms in several Eastern European countries it’s now found/produced in. The principal issue with the whole truffle market is that it’s an actual monopoly, controlled since decades ago by one single company, Urbani (who are based in the Marche, not even Piedmont). It’s a finely controlled marketing juggernaut, think DeBeers, but earthy/funky. The orthodoxy the article is angling for is Urbani’s rarity racket. Yes, spontaneous Tuber magnatum [that “Pico” is a conventional but unnecessary scientish flourish, though if you use it, it needs to be capitalized] are relatively rare and hard to find, but mostly you’re already buying into a whole spiel. You know what the Italian word for fraud is? Truffa, and yes, it comes from the French for truffle, truffe. Hoodwinking folks about tubers is an age-old thing…


Truffles fascinate me because because they were once common and successfully cultivated. In 1890 there were 2,000 tons of truffles produced annually. Their current scarcity and status as a luxury product is because all the truffle groves were bombed out in World War I and most of the people with the institutional knowledge needed to raise truffles in given locations were killed.

Ancient Romans imported tonnes of Terfeza, a pretty bland whitish genus of tuber they prized, from their colonies in Africa; the 19th century cultivation was of black truffles, with T. magnatum more elusive to domestication, but it’s recently been cracked by French researchers, so…

About storing them: if you can control moisture levels to avoid rot, it can keep pretty well for weeks (refrigerated in a sealed glass jar, immersed in rice, is traditional), but like any other fungi, the aroma will change with time.
posted by progosk at 10:52 PM on January 1, 2023 [11 favorites]

So if I have this right, truffles are made from or are pig shit? It's a little hard to follow.
posted by rhizome at 1:12 AM on January 2, 2023

I've eaten white truffles on pasta in Istria in Croatia, and black truffles on pasta in Umbria, italy, both in people's home kitchens in season. Nothing - absolutely nothing - has ever come close to those flavors. A few years back local markets in Budapest were flush with white truffles one spring... I tried some shaved on a simple pasta dish and it couldn't replicate the flavor I remembered. It impressed my guests, but I remember feeling let down and somewhat ripped off.
posted by zaelic at 4:46 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

When your digestive system breaks down mercaptan in asparagus, by-products are released that cause urine to smell funky. I tried in vain to convince someone that no, asparagus isn’t removing toxins from your body, it brings them into your body and your body breaks them down and removes them in your urine.
posted by waving at 5:38 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

rhizome, truffles are a fungus that grows underground. They look like drab lumps, but they aren't pig shit. The connection to pigs is that pigs are good at finding them.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:51 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I appreciate this guy's anger. It feels like it's very much on behalf of people like me, who don't know much about food but sometimes splurge on Experiences.

I'm no gourmand. I've always assumed the $10 truffle fries were a scam -- because come on, ten dollars? -- and then eaten them anyway, because whatever.

But even still, I've always imagined that once in my life I might go to a humiliatingly fancy restaurant and spend a few hundred dollars on the real thing. And it turns out in that dream scenario I'd be getting the same thing at a humiliating markup? Yeah, that pisses me right off, regardless of whether it's tasty. I'd be paying for a new and horizon-broadening experience and not getting it.

Like, look, if people were charging $100 a pint for "real vanilla ice cream," getting rubes like me to put it on our bucket lists, and then making it with McCormick's vanillin-in-a-bottle from the corner store, I'd be mad about that too -- not for the flavor, which I'm sure world be great (vanillin tastes great!), but for the unjustified markup and the undelivered promise of a new experience.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:58 AM on January 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

It's a little hard to follow

Nothing in the fungi world is easy to follow, if you delve into it beyond the surface/myths… for example, given your pig turd reference: that is precisely the traditional name in Chinese of a much sought-after therapeutic species, 猪苓 zhū líng, which translates to “pig tuber” due to its resemblance to pig excrement - it is in fact the sclerotium sometimes produced underground by the well-loved above-ground edible “umbrella polypore” (Polyporus umbellatus, a close relative of hen-of-the-woods Grifola frondosa). So, some “pig shit”, in some circles, are tuberous fungi, albeit not true truffles…
posted by progosk at 5:58 AM on January 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

Most of the vanilla tastings I've seen, and my own experience seem to show its a mixed bag at best.
This one from ATK (dunno if non subscribers can see that or not) has real and imitation vanilla all jumbled in the rankings.

I saw the ATK test and it confused me, until I remembered that we probably only meet imitation vanilla in industrial products here in the EU, because of labeling laws. I mean, I have never seen a bottle of vanillin in the wild (my local supermarket), and while they probably have it, it will be hidden with the food coloring etc. Who will buy something that says in large print: "Vanillin. Artificial vanilla flavor"? What would the neighbors say? Americans seem much more used to the product and the flavor in home cooking. It also seems that the price for real vanilla is extreme in the US. Why is that?

But then today this appeared in my YouTube feed: Is Real Vanilla actually worth it? By Ethan Chlebowski. I found it really interesting and enlightening. Maybe he could do the same with truffles, if we asked?
posted by mumimor at 7:28 AM on January 2, 2023

the price for real vanilla is extreme in the US

madagascar vanilla is expensive, mccormicks real vanilla ? cheap enough that i don’t see the point of fake vanilla.

fake truffle essence should be more than the one compound, the best stuff is a cocktail of other aromatic compounds to try and reproduce the depth of truffles. and i’m not ashamed to say that i love the smell and taste of it
posted by dis_integration at 8:17 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Still reading the fine article, but that opening pic layering a petrol pump drenching pasta in olive oil is *chef's kiss*
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:56 AM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

madagascar vanilla is expensive, mccormicks real vanilla ? cheap enough that i don’t see the point of fake vanilla.

Eh, in most baked foods, artificial tastes more “vanilla-y” since it doesn’t have any of the complex flavors that dissipate during baking. Plus it’s like $11 a gallon, and I go through about a half gallon a year. The real stuff would cost 10x as much, at a minimum and not really taste any better.

That said, I do keep the real stuff about for certain purposes.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:22 AM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

"If you find the smell of restaurants' truffle dishes foul, it does not mean that you do not like truffles; it could indicate that you have good taste and do not like petroleum on your plate."

Ah-hah! (I like it when someone tells me why my personal preferences are actually a mark of superiority.)

(Okay, but really, I don't care for truffle flavor. My preference is to avoid it. And unfortunately I have a lot of gourmet tastes, so it's nice to have a "premium markup" product that I don't want. I know I'm not actually saving money by avoiding truffled versions of whatever, but if I had convinced myself to like truffles, then I would definitely be spending more! So. It kind of feels like saving money.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:39 PM on January 2, 2023

next you're going to tell me that pumpkin spice doesn't have any pumpkin

or spice

just so we're all clear: Pumpkin spice shouldn't have pumpkin in it. It was never meant to. Pumpkin spice refers to the spice blend that people put in a pumpkin pie. That's it.

Just checking we all know this. This is the hill of my death.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 12:40 PM on January 2, 2023 [8 favorites]

I've only had real truffle once and it was totally different than truffle oil.

It's more like the difference in aroma between orange juice concentrate and eating an actual orange at the peak of summer.
posted by polymodus at 12:48 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oranges become ripe during winter months, so that is a very sour, green orange you're eating in the peak of summer.
posted by hippybear at 1:22 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I've never had real truffles, but I was totally underwhelmed by truffle oil fries at a local fine restaurant. My dining companion seemed stunned I didn't find them as delicious as she.

But fresh fries with a side of garlic aioli or toum? Amazing. I'd bite someone if they tried to take them away from me. So good.
posted by Fiberoptic Zebroid and The Hypnagogic Jerks at 1:54 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

"French" fries (Frietjes, in Dutch. They are a Belgian creation) want to make love in mayonnaise, while they are hot.
posted by Goofyy at 3:12 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

want to make love in mayonnaise

Um... Okay, that's a phrase I wasn't expecting to read.

while they are hot

Oh, and it has a modifier! I might need a grownup!
posted by hippybear at 5:09 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

I've had real truffles a few times at very fancy restaurants, and really enjoyed them a lot. But I think a big part of the enjoyment is actually the texture, too. And let's be real, dining is theater and there are few fancy-ass dining experiences more spectacular than the server bringing out the locked box of truffles and unveiling these pathetic little grimy-looking things and then ostentatiously grating/shaving them over your risotto. It's fun! It's weird! It's memorable, you've got to give it that. Sure there's an element of "what a chump I am" but when you've already signed up to pay for a dinner where they HAVE a locked box of truffles in the kitchen somewhere, you may as well be in for the pound as the penny.

By contrast, when I was pregnant with my first child I actually had to stop going to some restaurants because it was that time like ten years ago when truffle fries got insanely trendy and I literally couldn't bear the truffle oil smell. Even across the room it totally swamped any other aroma present in the restaurant. Even now, I haven't been pregnant in years and I kinda still get a bad feeling in my gut when I smell that truffle-oil funk.
posted by potrzebie at 5:14 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think it probably should go without saying that both synthetic and natural vanilla flavourings are actually commonly on sale in Europe, and vanillin based ones certain don't have to say ‘vanillin’ anywhere on the packaging.
posted by ambrosen at 5:52 PM on January 2, 2023

rhizome, truffles are a fungus that grows underground...

I always forget to add a sarcasm tag!
posted by rhizome at 6:17 PM on January 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have to say I don't know what this article is on about. I've had fresh white truffles in season at a Michelin ❋❋❋ restaurant and it seems very unlikely to me that they would risk their reputation in order to sell flavorless faux truffles. It was US$225, so even at €3000/kg, it would certainly be possible to use the real thing. It tasted almost exactly like good white truffle oil. It is true that there's bad truffle oil, like there is an any food product. Certainly doesn't help that it's often sold in clear bottles, that will turn any flavored oil junky pretty quick.
posted by wnissen at 7:41 PM on January 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think it probably should go without saying that both synthetic and natural vanilla flavourings are actually commonly on sale in Europe, and vanillin based ones certain don't have to say ‘vanillin’ anywhere on the packaging.

Interesting! So it must be a local thing, where I thought it was an EU regulation thing. I actually checked all the local stores when I was shopping last night, and I couldn't buy synthetic vanilla aroma anywhere. As expected, it was in a lot of industrial food products, like ice cream and cookies and one brand of vanilla sugar (Dr. Oetker). I didn't go to Aldi or Lidl because they are both a bit out of my routes, and now I feel I need to do that tomorrow, because I feel the very characteristic lovely smell in those German chains might well be predominately vanillin. I could buy natural vanilla pods everywhere, at a discount because it is after the holidays.

I couldn't find truffle oil either. It must have gone out of fashion here. Or it is one of the countless things we had no idea is actually from Ukraine or Russia...
posted by mumimor at 7:58 PM on January 2, 2023

Oranges become ripe during winter months, so that is a very sour, green orange you're eating in the peak of summer.

Yes, I know that. I typed it and walked away and hoped nobody would notice
posted by polymodus at 8:32 PM on January 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

(Went to Aldi and Lidl, and they both had whole vanilla pods and vanilla sugar with some vanillin. Lidl had Madagascar vanilla extract with no artificial additives. Non of them had truffle oil).
posted by mumimor at 2:26 AM on January 3, 2023

There is indeed a transcendent experience that Matt Babich is enjoying, here, that's impossible to enjoy from a bottle of cheap, petroleum-derived truffle oil.

That transcendent experience is the joy of declaiming to all who will listen about something you've done that the great majority of people can't afford.

Way to go, rich guy. You did it.
posted by gurple at 12:22 PM on January 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

That transcendent experience is the joy of declaiming to all who will listen about something you've done that the great majority of people can't afford.

That's what this whole thing seems like to me too, except that it's in the $200-$300 range rather than housing at $500k. Thanks for letting us know I guess.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:31 PM on January 3, 2023

I've had "real" truffles - do the farmed Australian ones count? - a few times as part of a dish in a fine dining restaurant. No locked boxes or hand shaved experiences though. I can see why people like them, and I can tell the difference from the fake cheap truffle oils, but I didn't particularly enjoy them. It's just not the kind of funk I'm looking for in a meal.

If you like the fake truffle oil and you've never had real truffles, you should definitely try them if you get the opportunity. But if you don't like the fake stuff I'm not sure the real thing is going to be your jam either.
posted by harriet vane at 7:15 PM on January 3, 2023

Weird. I love garlic and can't stand garlic fries. I like the smell, I want to like them but there is just something repulsive about them.

To me, truffle oil / fries taste like the bad part of garlic fries. The weird oily burnt thing without the savory flavor the scent belies.

I can recognize it, because a lot of places will have truffled sauce, or truffled mac+cheese and I find that flavor overwhelming and bad. I don't think I've had shaved truffles on pasta / eggs or whatever, but I can tell when something says truffle sauce I won't like it.

Also, I really like mushrooms, so I have always figured its some weird chemical compound, and occasionally will try something if the rest of the dish sounds good, but pretty much always regret it.
posted by lkc at 12:03 PM on January 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Didn't someone once say that if garlic were as rare as truffles it would be a hundred times more expensive than truffles?

if cheetos were hard to grow they'd be worth millions

billionaires would walk around with orange dust on their face
posted by clawsoon at 12:55 PM on January 4, 2023 [3 favorites]