They could just pitch these as cheaper substitutions and it wouldn’t be so annoying.
A big problem with truffle oil is that it's too easy to overdo it, which is something you're less likely to do with a $200 black truffle. It's also too easy to add truffle notes to things that aren't really improved by truffle notes. And those two problems compound each other.
It can work pretty well on french fries, though!
True. (And TBH I prefer a decent beer to an equivalent tier of champagne) People get wrapped up in the status element of the luxury good and lose sight of the actual use/enjoyment function of the good itself. If we were more comfortable letting the cheap stuff sing in its own right instead of trying to imitate the expensive things we might open a lot of doors for new innovations.
Your point about truffle oil makes me think of all those 50s cookbooks doing all kinds of weird stuff with gelatin since gelatinizing stuff wasn’t some absurdly laborious and expensive process anymore. It seems like it took a while for people to realize that entombing all foods in gelatin just because you can is actually. . . Not very good. Haha
Still vanillin is artificial, but hardly a terrible thing in its own right. As you said there are recipes where the flatter note of vanillin works better than the more subtle and complex floral notes of true vanilla. I’d argue however that truffle oil is always disgusting, and the issue of it being somehow fake or fraudulent is secondary to how nasty it is.
Still, in an application like ice cream real vanilla in generous amounts is so much nicer than artificial. Of course ice cream producers figured out that most people aren’t able to tell the difference, lacking experience with a reference point. They realized that black flecks in the mix were what people really looked for, so a market emerged. After vanilla extract is made the bean is totally devoid of flavor, but it’s now ground into flecks and sold as an additive and can be legally listed as “vanilla bean” in the ingredients.
On a semi-related note a friend recently told me that “most cinnamon is fake!” It turns out he learned that a lot of cinnamon used is cassia cinnamon, not Ceylon cinnamon. I had to explain to him that they’re both cinnamon, and both great in different applications. If you want bright, spicy cinnamon then cassia is the way to go. If you want floral cinnamon then cinnamomum verum is the way, and if you want something in between with a natural sweetness, Vietnamese cinnamon is it.
Maybe it’s just that I spent a lot of time in Mexico growing up, but I think ceylon cinnamon is better for every purpose I can think of. I wouldn’t describe it as “floral” though.
My impression is that cassia cinnamon is usually used because it is cheaper.
It's a well known fact of cooking, natural vanilla denatures above a rather low temperature (around 50°C or so, if I recall correctly) but artificial vanilla doesn't.
So if you're using vanilla in... crème anglaise (apparently that's the English name for it?) you should use artificial vanilla or pay much attention to adding the vanilla only after it has cooled down enough, but if you're doing ice cream then natural vanilla is a good choice.
A bit of a shock when a steak sandwich came slathered in it, and the menu made no mention of this
Fortunately the person who ordered it didn't mind, but I would've sent it back
On the other hand the frozen sliced reindeer meat is 100% reindeer. The canned stuff is meatballs, which is difficult to make from reindeer or moose -- the meat contains no fat whatsoever. Thus the pork mix.
As for wasabi, what my wife says (she's Japanese) is that wasabi isn't there for its own flavor - its only job is to enhance the flavor of the food it is served with (she talks a lot about tasting the nuances, which is what Japanese food is about - it's not about taste explosions like in so many other cultures). So if you use so much wasabi ('fake' or not) that it only functions to open up your sinuses you're doing it wrong. Same with soy sauce and the like - it's not something you add just to make whatever you're eating taste like soy sauce. And she's horrified when she sees people around here (we're not in Japan) dip vegetable tempura into soy sauce. It destroyes the taste. You're supposed to only add a little salt, the same as a little salt enhances the flavor of eggs. (Add too much though and you only taste salt).
If you have venison in a resteraunt, it's often rare steak dishes. It's cooked rare because it's so lean, and dries up when cooked for longer. Usually the meat is trimmed, because the fat/grisle isn't as good as beef (in ye old times, venison fat was used for tallow candles instead of lard) But, not every cut is steak.
If you make sausages or minced meat dishes (meatballs, etc.) from venison, cutting it with pork or pork fat makes it much more suitable for most recipes.
Lying to consumers is not ok, but combining venison and pork is legit. My guess is that it's traditional.
FWIW, tempura dipping sauce is usually ginger/mirin/daikon/sugar/soy sauce, and is far sweeter than soy sauce alone—a wonderful combination for tempura.
Is this because brewed soy sauce isn't Halal?
ED: why the downvotes? That's a legitimate reason for why vinegar in most chip shops is actually "non-brewed condiment".
This comment is so ignorant.
The biggest mistake we make with food and drink is to “want the best” instead of wanting the best for us. There is subsitute for trying lots of different types of food and drink and choosing what you like the taste of most, not what’s most applauded by experts or in vogue.
IMHO eating wagyu as a steak is a waste for essentially the reason you state. The fat softens at that temperature and because there is so much of it, the texture suffers. I'll take a long aged, lower fat, dry cured cut over that any day of the week. Where wagyu really shines is yakiniku. When it is cut thin, the fat has somewhere to go and the flavour and texture are amazing. This is one of the reasons why if you buy wagyu steak at a teppen yaki place, they will typically cut it fairly thinly.
Wagyu is not actually that expensive in Japan. I mean it's expensive, but not the ludicrous prices that people pay overseas. IIRC 100g of Shizuoka bara (stomach -- think the same cut as bacon) is about $6. Sirloin is up around $16. That's still nearly $70 a pound, but if you aren't making a steak or a roast (for which it is really completely inappropriate) it's fine. When I do yakiniku at home with my wife, between the two of us we eat 300 grams of meat and that includes the pork (Shizuoka black pork is amazing).
I really like wagyu, but there are other traditions for preparing beef that are just as good (in a different way) and not as expensive.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I typically make a roast here using thigh meat (momo) and bard it with stomach. That is a fantastic combination and I can make a 1 lb roast for less than $20.
The ones I've gotten that still have the tops on them, and the outer skin, absolutely are; IME, what you are referring to are generally sold as “baby-cut” or “petit” carrots, rather than “baby" carrots.
In the UK the closest I've seen or heard of are both 'real' (whole) carrots:
Chantenay - https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-chantenay-ca...
'Baby topped' - https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-1-baby-toppe...
What?! Citation sorely needed. I do, and in my experience 'big' (I would've said 'normal') carrots are stocked more abundantly than any other.
I think they've already failed at being "New York style".
> you may find that what is sold as chocolate actually has no cacao in it
In the western world, most people seem to want little to no cacao but sugar instead.
Nah really just the US has the giant value bags of Hershey's product with almost no cacao solids. The commonwealth western nations are still sweet but have higher minimums.
Don't believe me? A good benchmark is kitkat bars. Try the regular from US, Canada, England, and Japan. Only the US one tastes overwhelmingly of sugar and not chocolate. Japan's chocolate is far less sweet but they don't seem to emphasize solids as much as UK does.
Given that sugar is addictive and most producers seem to have the attitude that the more sugar you sneak into the product, the cheaper it is and the more it sells, maybe Nestle (Kitkat's producer, right?) tests for regional tolerance and puts in the maximum amount of sugar, where the person still doesn't feel an overwhelming sugar shock when tasting? Just speculation, but it's a possibility I'd investigate if I were an evil food industry mogul.
As for myself, I just hate how shop-made cakes are mostly sugar - it feels like my mouth is burning. I don't understand why they do it. Nearly everyone I know prefer home-made cakes (made from basic ingrediants, not mix bags).
Since we're trading anecdotes, I was told that in Egypt people drink sugar drinks, like Cocacola, like you would drink alcohol in the West. Islam forbids drinking alcohol, so they use the next most boring drug: sugar. The picture that was painted for me was a group of grown men sitting around a cafe-bar drinking Cocacola.
I've done this with Oregon white truffles (tuber oregonense) that I harvested with the help of my dog. Kept the butter frozen for over a year, and it still had the truffle aroma when I pulled it out of the freezer.
I actually think the infusion method adds a lot more flavor/aroma than adding pieces of truffle, but the pieces are clear evidence that what you bought actually came in contact with real truffles--it's pretty much just marketing.
Truffle oil can be produced using any oil. Common versions use olive oil, or a more neutral flavorless oil such as canola or grapeseed oil.[6]
Some truffle oils are made with truffle residues incurred during collection or preparation for sale. Many truffle oils sold in retail markets are not made from truffles[1] but instead use manufactured aromatic compounds including 2,4-dithiapentane (one of many aroma active compounds that can be found in some truffle varietals) with an oil base. There are no regulations regarding the labeling of 2,4-dithiapentane and it can legally be called truffle aroma, truffle flavor, truffle concentrate or other similar terms, even though it is not extracted from truffles. In the United States, the ingredient may use the modifiers "organic" or "natural" as long as the components meet the federal requirements for those terms. Truffle oils range from clear to cloudy, and yellow to green, depending on the base oil used. Some include a piece of truffle in the bottle.[2] These pieces can be from any of over 200 different truffle species and may be listed as "black truffle" or "white truffle" even if not one of prized culinary varietals such as the black Périgord or white Alba truffle.
This is historic and no longer the case:
Truffle oil is frequently used as a bait for truffle-hunting dogs and pigs. Modern Italians often use a strufion, a ball of rags scented with truffle oil.[7](p87) Truffle oil has been used for this purpose since at least 1756, made by boiling truffles in olive oil and given to hunting dogs.[9]
It's really not difficult to find here, and it is absolutely made with real truffle (the broken pieces that can't be sold as truffles). I don't have any at home because I don't care for it, but one I can find at my usual supermarket for example contains "TUBER AESTIVUM (1.1%)". This is known to be a so-so variety of truffle at best. The next-level product (at almost 40 €/L) specifically says that the truffle in its ingredients is "Périgord truffle (Tuber Melanosporum) 1%". This is probably a good enough truffle oil if you like that.
Looking up the products here in Belgium though, it seems like only "truffle taste" oils are available in the regular supermarkets, but that is also clear from the product names ("Bereiding van Olijfolie van Eerste Persing 99,7% met Truffelsmaak").