I remember, vividly, when working at Raymond Blanc’s Michelin-starred Le Manoir, the moment the truffles were delivered. A frisson went round the kitchen staff as the napkin covering the precious morsels was dramatically whipped off. Physically inspecting the gnarled, knobbly nuggets was a right reserved for head chef alone. As a lowly pot-washer, I was confined to the back, neck craned for a glimpse.
So I am not blind to the excitement and sheer theatre of the treasured truffle. I even like them. But why on earth have they taken over every restaurant menu, as plentiful as lashings of ‘EV’ olive oil and flaky sea salt?
2018-19 was when the truffle takeover first got going on the London restaurant scene. Then the rot quickly set in. There is a five-store chain – Truffle Burger – serving, you guessed it. It’s not yet quite as bad as Salt Bae’s gold leaf-encrusted burgers, but it’s not far off. Truffle and parmesan fries were vaguely interesting when they first appeared; now I just groan and think back nostalgically to the days of ketchup and mustard. Mash and macaroni cheese are scarcely available without being truffled. Toasties are increasingly not safe. Cacio e pepe is long gone. What causes this delirium? Are people high, on, er, mushrooms? London’s NoMad hotel has even started an ‘at cost’ offering for truffles – a snip at £36 for 8g. Soon you’ll have restaurants doing BYOT (Bring Your Own Truffles).
Mash and macaroni cheese are scarcely available without being truffled. Toasties are increasingly not safe. Cacio e pepe is long gone. What causes this delirium? Are people high, on, er, mushrooms?
Prized white truffles, most famously from Piedmont and sold for up to £6,000/kg, are a little pricey even for avowed foodies. More common are the Instagrammable black truffles from Perigord or even southern England. All have a musky, mouldy, umami character, vaguely reminiscent of feet.
Truffle oil is much maligned, I think unfairly. Not a shaving on the proper stuff they say, you need the real McCoy (a venerable crisp at it happens, and so far admirably holding out against the truffle madness). Yes, some of the oils might be synthetic-tasting guff. But I once bought a bottle of English truffle oil for a relative snip at a tenner and ate practically nothing other than hunks of bread dipped in it and sprinkled with Maldon salt for a week. And it’s all very well getting the fresh stuff if used right away, but delay and you risk disaster. Given a little truffle in a jar, I kept it for so long awaiting a suitable occasion it shrivelled into a strange zoological specimen and was utterly tasteless.
They are a status symbol of course. Culinary conspicuous consumption. Their popularity is less about taste than fashion, and social media-fuelled fashions are the most inexplicable and vacuous of the lot. As with so much food in the TikTok age, it’s become just gluttonous excess for its own sake.
The only surprising thing is the relative staying power of truffles. Viral trends such as pancake cereal and cloud bread have come and gone, but truffle mania is still with us. Perhaps because this one’s been co-opted by the parents. The Brindisa Torres black truffle crisps, gracing every north London deli window, are now the chattering classes’ cocktail party nibble of choice. Goes oh so well with the Chateau Margaux, don’t you know.
Properly, sparingly used, truffle is a beautiful thing. On scrambled eggs it can elevate a breakfast into something really special. In a simple butter and parmesan pasta, truffle is given space to shine.
And the best thing really about truffle is the drama of hunting for it. Traditionally done with truffle hogs, using truffle hounds is now the norm (or just rakes, or even looking for flies). This is mainly due to the pigs’ unfortunate tendency to guzzle down the truffles that were rightfully theirs, depriving Giuseppe and Giovanni of their wages. Well-trained Lagotto Romagnolo, a gundog breed, can fetch astronomical sums and so the Italians resort to stealing them off each other instead.
It is all undeniably exciting. Like panning for gold or digging for diamonds. Little wonder that the sight of a large tartufo bianco d’Alba does more to titillate the millennial generation than gazing at the Koh-i-Noor. But while diamonds are forever, let’s hope this ridiculous truffle obsession is not.
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