Growers and Grocers

I need to get on my soapbox for a moment because I am seeing a trend in ingredient pricing and it has me feeling cantankerous.

The other day at Whole Foods, a store known for its prices, I saw truffle oil for sale (not on sale, for sale) for less than five dollars.  Granted, it was only a few measly ounces, but it was truffle oil.  It was oil that is supposedly made with truffles, which can cost sixteen hundred dollars per pound, but their oil was being sold for less than five bucks.

To make matters worse, a visit to Wikipedia delivered my second shock of the evening.  Apparently, most truffle oil is no longer made from truffles.  Instead, it is made of flavoring agents that have the taste and the smell of either white or black truffles.  These compounds are then mixed in with olive oil and viola… “truffle” oil.  These oils are not real, but yet they get passed off as a luxury ingredient that sells for far more than the equivalent olive oil despite the relative cheapness of synthetic flavorings and smell agents.

Normally, I tend to believe that cheap ingredients are their own best punishment, but I cannot let this slide.  Perhaps I have truffles and truffle oil on too high of a pedestal, but there is just something about five dollar truffle oil and creating fake truffle oil that irks me.

I do not want to tell anyone what to do and I am sure the lowered price point means that more people will have access to it.  However, it also means that quality control is going straight out the window.  This, in turn, means that what people are eating will not be very good and perhaps ruin them from ever trying good truffle oil.

In the end, let the buyer beware.  I, personally, have updated my rules for truffle oil purchasing.  I will now no longer buy it from any grocery store, including Whole Foods.  This means my options are limited to Dean and Deluca, who wrote the book on expensive, and maybe Williams Sonoma or some of the better oils on Amazon.com.  I highly recommend you consider doing the same.

This necessarily makes truffle oil a “sometimes” food, but then again, is that not part of the truffle mystique?  Their scarcity makes them desirable, right?

And now I step down from my sandbox.  Thank you, good night, and beware bad truffle oil!

(Note, the image and link above is to Amazon.com and includes a decent truffle oil from Five Grocery Store Gifts Under $15. It’s a good low range truffle oil.)