Truffle oil does not have truffles in it.
“Call it the LVMH-ization of cooking. Truffles have become a luxury brand, one that connotes a way of life as much as a style of cooking. “Chefs use truffle oil because it’s easy to add a gloss of glamour with it — and because it helps sell dishes,†S. Irene Virbila, chief restaurant critic of The Los Angeles Times, said in an e-mail message.
“Although the scent of a truffle just dug can be one of the most profound gustatory experiences of the Western world, it’s one that not many people in this country have had on truffles’ native soil. Once there were only a few expensive and exclusive restaurants that recreated that experience, which only select customers could afford. Truffle oil has simultaneously democratized and cheapened the truffle experience, creating a knockoff that goes by the same name.” Chef Daniel Patterson in De Gustibus, the NYT forum for opinions and reflections on food.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
May 22nd, 2007 at 14:16
It’s still good for drizzling on microwave popcorn, to replace the artificial butter flavoring, when watching zombie movies.
May 26th, 2007 at 07:15
The artifical butter flavoring in microwave popcorn may be the secret ingredient for making you into a zombie. It could give you “bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare and life-threatening form of fixed obstructive lung disease. Also known as popcorn workers lung, because it has turned up in workers at microwave-popcorn factories, the disease destroys the lungs.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050601089.html