No, Virginia, there isn’t a Santa Claus
My world has just been turned upside down by this bit of “news” from the world of the culinary arts. Is nothing sacred?
From the New York Times:
All across the country, in restaurants great and small, the “truffle” flavor advertised on menus is increasingly being supplied by truffle oil. What those menus don’t say is that, unlike real truffles, the aroma of truffle oil is not born in the earth. Most commercial truffle oils are concocted by mixing olive oil with one or more compounds like 2,4-dithiapentane (the most prominent of the hundreds of aromatic molecules that make the flavor of white truffles so exciting) that have been created in a laboratory; their one-dimensional flavor is also changing common understanding of how a truffle should taste.
Maybe this wasn’t news to you, but to me it is very sad. Apparently the truffle addiction I thought I had was actually an addiction to 2,4-dithiapentane. I wonder if you can get it cheap from a lab?
Thanks to jeckels for the tip. You have turned my world upside-down.