Where's the beef?

Did you know contrary to popular belief, and even the belief of most restaurant chefs!, the New York Times recently reported that most truffle oil does not, in fact, contain any truffles! Fucking bombshell!

The reality is that the vast majority of truffle oil is simply olive oil containing a synthetic flavoring agent, called "2,4-dithiapentane?" Mmmm sounds deelish!


Muhahahaha specious "truffle" oil a/k/a 2,4-dithiapentane

Daniel Patterson dropped da bomb in the New York Times back in May that "even now, you will find chefs who are surprised to hear that truffle oil does not actually come from real truffles."

Nevertheless, many chefs continue to use synthetic truffle oil, which is inexpensive, because they consider it to be "a reasonable substitute."

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 flavour of white truffles so exciting) that have been created in a laboratory. Frankentruffles?!

Hocus-Pocus, and a Beaker of Truffles {NY Times}