food

Oh boy, hopefully people are reasonable about this and it doesn't start a full struggle session like frying in olive oil. As someone whose been cooking professionally for 6 years, I'm very familiar with both "real" and "fake" truffle oil. I've cooked with it in many restaurants with many different uses. It's a very popular ingredient in modern American restaurants, and I've heard about it picking up in other western countries as well.

To fill in non-foodie people who may be reading this, truffle oil at restaurants is very rarely made from real truffles, instead being a chemical approximation of over 300 different truffle compounds. It's a very unique scent that you're only getting from the fake truffle oil though. Real truffle oil has very little scent or flavor, being far more subtle of an ingredient than the fake stuff. For reference in the difference, people allergic to mushrooms have no problem consuming the fake truffle oil.

To give my thoughts so that this isn't one sided, this might be a hot take but I love fake truffle oil. It smells kinda funky at first, but it goes so well as a finisher on so many dishes, just giving a slight mushroom funk without making it overwhelming. I also like it for allergy reasons, I don't personally have an allergy to mushrooms, but as someone who LOVES serving food, I want everybody to be able to get good tasting food.