Truffles:

Are truffles a scam or are they really that good?

npr.org/sections/money/2016/11/04/500726210/episode-733-a-trunk-full-of-truffles

Nigga, it's just a mushroom. Just like with cavier, it's just fish eggs. Just another marketing ploy from the French Jews to make more money out of their mediocre food.

Nothing in modern times has ever been priced based on how good it is. Truffles are only expensive because of the convoluted harvesting method.

>truffles are mushrooms.
Dumb cunt.

They are good as fuck, hard to find, have a limited season, and cannot be cultivated...
Is the price a bit excessive?
Yeah probably, but having them on special occasions is worth it imo

It isn't marketing, its scarcity. When something delicious is only available in very limited quantity it becomes a luxury good, because its price reflects its scarcity, not how good it actually is.

So if you're a price sensitive customer truffles will seem like a scam, because they're very expensive and unlikely to seem worth the money to you. That doesn't alter the fact that they are delicious, and many with the disposable income to enjoy luxury goods look forward to truffle season.

Nice troll!

I bought black truffles once, just to try them. I had them with scrambled eggs and then risotto.

The taste was underwhelming and not worth the price IMO, but the smell of the truffles themselves was incredible. If you could carry them in a box for a long period of time (without them going bad) and just smell them throughout the day they would be awesome.

The aroma is really quite impressive. It's not a "good smell" by most standards, but it is very heady and unique. Very difficult to describe, and synthetic truffle oil doesn't do the real thing justice.

why the fuck don't we just like

plant truffles

and shit

I was leading an LRS patrol on a training mission in Fort Lewis Washington and McChord AFB. We dug out observation hides. My Senior Scout uncovered a truffle the size of an apple. Everyone had truffles on their MREs for the week.

Troll?
They cannot be cultivated

Sure they can

People just aren't trying hard enough.

People are doing this, but it takes time for the truffles to start developing and it is a pretty intensive investment. You basically inoculate hazel seedlings or other host plants with a truffle spore suspension, plant them in an appropriate climate and soil type, and hope that in 5-7 years they start producing.

I read about one truffle farm that waited and waited and the resulting truffles that came up weren't a commercially viable species. It turned out to be a native truffle species that was more aggressive than the one they wanted, so it took over the plantation.

Keep in mind truffles are expensive but the demand by the middle class isn't exactly huge. If everyone farmed them, the price would drop or there wouldn't necessarily be a demand to match the supply.

I was surprised to see pictures of large-scale morel cultivation in China.

They're good, but quite expensive. Nothing wrong with Oregon truffles, which are much cheaper.

Even truffle flavoring isn't bad as long as it's used sparingly and alongside complimentary flavors. I never understood why people get a stick up their ass about truffle flavoring but are fine with artificial vanilla extract.

white alba truffle is goat. everything else a scam.

I think most of those people are NOT ok with artificial vanilla.
The only time I've had decent truffle flavor besides the real thing was some oil I got in Spain

Part of the thing about cultivating wild products is that you end up changing their flavor in order to insure more successful cultivation. Wild things pick up the tastes of the place where they grew, are effected by he weather during their lifetime and as such are subject to wide variation. Think about the differences between farmed salmon and wild caught - there's no comparison. What you're going to end up with is the truffle equivalent of farmed salmon - a cheaper product lacking in flavor.

A little bit of truffle flavoring in pasta, alongside some real sauteed mushrooms, onion, garlic, and other flavors, for example, tastes good and avoids the one-note terribleness that results from a number of places that misuse truffle flavoring.

Truffle-flavoring only has one note, sure, but as long as it doesn't dominate the other flavors - as long as it only exists to compliment them, it can be pretty good.

They are really good, but cost prohibitive (for me), I use pic related pretty regularly, stuff lasts forever as you only need a drop or two. Perks up a lot of dishes, but can overwhelm things if not used judiciously. Used it last night on some mushroom ravioli in brown butter sage sauce in fact.

That's a great suggestion, thanks friend

see this poster for an example of how cheap truffle flavoring should be used:

I'm cooking through Daniel Humm's Eleven Madison Park cookbook
I'm going to have to be creative with the use of oils and flavors since the real thing is like $200/oz

Sunflower oil infused with artificial flavors.


Meh.

Fresh truffles can be quite good.

Both mushrooms and truffles are the fruiting body of fungi, but truffles aren't mushrooms which strictly grow on the ground not under it.

>but truffles aren't mushrooms which strictly grow on the ground not under it.
wut

TRUFFLES ARE QUITE LITERALLY THE BIGGEST MEME ON THE PLANET BAR-NOTHING

Truffles are not mushrooms.
Do you struggle with reading comprehension?

>truffles aren't mushrooms which strictly grow on the ground not under it
Read this again.

I'm glad you read this again.
Next time do that before posting and you won't make a fool of yourself.

>truffles aren't mushrooms which grow under the ground
okay

>not under it
wut

>truffles are NOT mushrooms which strictly grow on the ground NOT under it
wut

Not him and I see your point but you're a bit of a pedantic cunt, aren't you?
>1rritant.jpg

>French food
>mediocre

time to die.

The French do bread, cheese, wine and white flags. Other than that, Va te faire foutre

>never been to France let alone eaten French food