Hocus-Pocus, and a Beaker of Truffles (2007)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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 (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.)
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.