4 ms·

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.

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.