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Comment by beardyw | Hacker News Reader

I read that probably all truffle oil is fake. Hard to find a definitive statement.

Truffle oil you buy at the store, never been within miles from a real truffle. It's an oil that made to smell and taste "kinda" like truffle. The label is clear about that.

It's not fake in the same way it's talked about fake balsamic vinegar in this article.

I was recently traveling in New Zealand and had an opportunity to visit the Te Puke truffle farm. They explained why truffle oil is not made by infusing truffles in oil: it's because truffles can harbor botulism, which is anaerobic, and so dunking a truffle in oil creates a perfect environment for botulism to thrive. "Fake" truffle oil is a feature, quite literally not a bug.

I would think you could fix that pretty easily with a heat step. There are real truffle oils made that way I assume that’s what they do.

Botulism can survive boiling, but not pressure cooking, which is only a little bit hotter, And below the point which oils are destroyed.

My guess is that would also destroy the flavor. But I don’t know.

I don’t know either. I’ve found truffle oil made with real truffles in stores, and if there’s one thing doing packaged food has taught me it’s that you cannot make a product with botulism risk without doing something to reduce it to practically zero. I believe the only surface preparation kill step for pathogens of any sort is citrus fruit, which can be pasteurized by dipping in something because only the peel can harbor any pathogens. (I could be wrong on that but I did go through that recently.)

When you package anything, whichever department of ag you’re regulated by analyzes your ingredients and process to make sure you get a certain log reduction of any pathogens of interest. If there’s any risk at all, you have to have all of this greenlit by a process authority. (Oddly, Cornell is the 800 lb gorilla of that market, a huge chunk of packaged food in the US paid them for it.)

If someone is packaging real truffle oil anywhere in the US, and assuming botulism is a pathogen of interest (which I don’t know but does sound sensible) there’s definitely a kill step. I’ve never worked with mushrooms or any recipes that have low acid, so I don’t know what it is in this case. But I’m sure there is one.

Interestingly, what most people think of as "truffle flavour" is fake truffle. Only two types of truffle have any flavour of note, the French black Perigord and the Italian white. They taste milder than you have been led to believe, there aren't many, they don't freeze, and they're only available in summer.

Corollary: if you have a truffle not in season, it's definitely a fake. If you have a truffle in season, it's still probably a fake. Often it's a Chinese one, which tastes of nothing, with fake truffle flavour added. If you eat a naturally tasty truffle, you might not recognise it, nearly everyone has only ever eaten fakes.

Also, since truffles aren't cooked, when you order at the restaurant - usually, with real truffles they would grate it in-front of you.

I remember having fake truffle fries shortly after real truffle fries and boy the difference so big, I don't know why fake truffle just didn't create it's own label.

id venture anything under $200/oz USD is fake. it is generally sourced as a byproduct of the petrochemical industry.

Whenever I see statements like this that correlate price and product quality (eg wine, spirits), I’m always wondering why a “fake” wouldn’t just elevate its price to the level of the non-fake. I have a feeling most customers won’t know the difference. I guess I’m just skeptical of using price as a proxy where everything from a fancy-looking label to a nice marketing campaign will inflate the price.

I think the reason is the fake ones are capitalizing on the demand at lower price levels. I bet there are fake expensive ones as well but it would likely be a tougher market to compete in.

Specifically with truffle oil - its taste profile is so noticeable different, that unless you never had a real truffle, it would be easy to spot.

As for different things, about 7 years ago in LA there was as huge wine counterfeit operation bust. Expensive bottles were filled with cheaper wine, re-corked and sold. This is why expensive bottles now "destroyed" one way or another.

Point is - easier to sell and fewer troubles.

At the higher price points there is margin available for quality assurance, certification of origin, and testing by experts.

$200/oz is the cost of a fresh high end truffle which you wouldn't use to make oil. You don't need that much to make infused oil, it's more like $10/oz.

Real 100 year old Balsamic vinegar is $200/oz though: https://giusti.com/products/giusti-100-reserve

It doesn’t take that much truffle to make a lot of truffle oil so it isn’t that expensive, but it is quite a bit more than the fake stuff

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