5 ms·

Hocus-Pocus, and a Beaker of Truffles (2007)

19 points by myrrh 13y ago

mistercow 13y ago
>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.
- pazimzadeh 13y ago
  I thought his point was that it's less full flavored than real truffles and is therefore changing the public's taste and expectations for truffles.
  - gwern 13y ago
    There's clearly a lot of purity-based emotional cognition happening here. The end of the article provides no less than 3 clear examples: > Chris L’Hommedieu, chef de cuisine at Michael Mina in San Francisco, used truffle oils during his tenure as chef de cuisine at Per Se in New York, although he said he never developed a taste for them. But when asked how much of his aversion to truffle oil was due to its artificiality, he told me: “One hundred percent. I learned that from Jean-Louis.” > > Mr. L’Hommedieu’s recollection involved the late chef Jean-Louis Palladin, with whom he worked at Palladin, a Manhattan restaurant that is now closed. Returning from a trip out of town, Mr. Palladin was enraged to walk into the kitchen and find that in his absence bottles of truffle oil had cropped up everywhere. Grabbing two of them, he called the staff out to the alley behind the restaurant where the garbage was held. He hurled the oil at the side of the building, smashing the glass bottles against the wall. “It’s full of chemicals,” he screamed at his confused and frightened staff members, who scrambled back to the kitchen through the gathering scent of truffle oil mingled with the fetid air of the alley. “No more!” > > I couldn’t have said it better myself.
    - pazimzadeh 13y ago
      It's funny that you say that since synthetic truffle oil is arguably more pure, which is to less full-flavored than the fungus. Jean-Louis Palladin might not realize that "chemicals" are behind the taste of both the oil and the truffles, but he might still have a point, from a gustatory perspective. The issue could probably be solved adding the "artificial" label to truffle oils that are synthetic, the same as for vanilla extract.
- gammarator 13y ago
  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 13y ago
    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.
lafar6502 13y ago
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 13y ago
  > 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 13y ago
    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.

19 points by myrrh 13y ago

>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.

pazimzadeh 13y ago
I thought his point was that it's less full flavored than real truffles and is therefore changing the public's taste and expectations for truffles.
- gwern 13y ago
  There's clearly a lot of purity-based emotional cognition happening here. The end of the article provides no less than 3 clear examples: > Chris L’Hommedieu, chef de cuisine at Michael Mina in San Francisco, used truffle oils during his tenure as chef de cuisine at Per Se in New York, although he said he never developed a taste for them. But when asked how much of his aversion to truffle oil was due to its artificiality, he told me: “One hundred percent. I learned that from Jean-Louis.” > > Mr. L’Hommedieu’s recollection involved the late chef Jean-Louis Palladin, with whom he worked at Palladin, a Manhattan restaurant that is now closed. Returning from a trip out of town, Mr. Palladin was enraged to walk into the kitchen and find that in his absence bottles of truffle oil had cropped up everywhere. Grabbing two of them, he called the staff out to the alley behind the restaurant where the garbage was held. He hurled the oil at the side of the building, smashing the glass bottles against the wall. “It’s full of chemicals,” he screamed at his confused and frightened staff members, who scrambled back to the kitchen through the gathering scent of truffle oil mingled with the fetid air of the alley. “No more!” > > I couldn’t have said it better myself.
  - pazimzadeh 13y ago
    It's funny that you say that since synthetic truffle oil is arguably more pure, which is to less full-flavored than the fungus. Jean-Louis Palladin might not realize that "chemicals" are behind the taste of both the oil and the truffles, but he might still have a point, from a gustatory perspective. The issue could probably be solved adding the "artificial" label to truffle oils that are synthetic, the same as for vanilla extract.
gammarator 13y ago
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 13y ago
  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.

lafar6502 13y ago

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 13y ago
> 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 13y ago
  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.