Don't Let Yourself Get Scammed By Overpriced Truffle Fries

Truffles are one of the most expensive foods on earth. Single truffles have been sold for over $300,000. And yet, in recent years, the ultra-luxurious fungi have escaped fine dining and entered the mainstream. Shake Shack has made truffle-infused burgers and fries available to the hungry masses with multiple limited-edition truffle-infused menus. Popeye's briefly offered a chicken sandwich with a slathering of spicy truffle mayo. Truffle fries are seemingly everywhere, and you can buy truffle pizza at Costco and truffle cheese at Trader Joe's. Somehow, this rare and expensive ingredient is available in fast-casual restaurants and grocery stores for a relatively low price. This might all seem too good to be true, and unfortunately, it is.

Truffle oil, the key ingredient in almost all so-called truffle-infused products, often does not contain real truffles. Instead, most truffle oils derive a savory, umami flavor from synthetic chemical compounds like 2,4-dithiapentane. Sometimes, a small amount of the cheapest, blandest variety of real truffles is added for the sake of appearances. But the hard reality is most readily available truffle-flavored foods, from fries to pizza, contain no real truffle. That means you're paying extra for "fancy" truffle fries without getting much (or any) of the expensive ingredient promised in their name.

Truffles are a type of fungi that grows underground. There are hundreds of varieties, and although none are poisonous, many are inedible. Only four or five truffle species are considered sought-after gourmet delicacies. Truffles only grow in very specific climates and conditions and must be foraged in the wild or carefully cultivated. Foraging for wild truffles is a laborious and time-consuming process requiring highly trained truffle-sniffing dogs (pigs can also sniff out truffles, but they are much more difficult to train and have an annoying tendency to eat the product as soon as they find it). 

Cultivating truffles is a very delicate process, and even under perfect conditions, it can be years before the truffles are ready to harvest. Whether farmed or foraged, truffles require a massive amount of time and skilled labor to procure. Once the truffles have been unearthed, they have a very short shelf life — most varieties should be eaten within a week for the best flavor. All of these factors contribute to their sky-high price tag. 

You might think that if synthetic truffle flavor allows more people to experience a taste of luxury for a lower price, what's the harm? Unfortunately, according to those lucky few who have sampled the genuine article, the flavor of synthetic truffle oil is a far cry from the delicate, complex flavor of real truffles. Worse, many argue that not only does truffle oil not taste anything like truffles, it tastes straight-up bad.

Gordan Ramsay argued that truffle oil is "One of the most pungent, ridiculous ingredients ever known to [a] chef" after an unlucky contestant used it to garnish a dish on Season 2 of "Masterchef" (via YouTube). Martha Stewart has also expressed her distaste for the substance, writing that "truffle oil is one of the few ingredients that doesn't belong in anyone's kitchen," in a 2014 Reddit AMA. 

That's pretty scathing, but the truth is, for better or worse, most of us don't have the palate of a celebrity chef (I mean, Martha Stewart's favorite pizza topping is bougie peas). So if you genuinely enjoy the taste of truffle oil, and don't mind paying a few extra bucks, keep eating truffle fries to your heart's content. But please, we beg of you, don't just order them because they feel fancy.