Truffle Oil Trials

Cook’s Illustrated test cook Celeste Rogers measures out a small portion of one of eight different brands of white truffle oil into a measuring cup of melted butter ahead of a taste test of the pungent ingredient conducted by tossing the resulting sauce with spaghetti. Sounds like a fun tasting? Think again: many truffle oils on the market aren’t actually made with real truffles, but are instead concocted by mixing a petrolium-based organic compound called 2,4-dithiapentane (which occurs naturally in truffles, but is easily synthesized for mass production) with olive oil, resulting in a substance that is pungent to the point of causing headaches and only bears a passing resemblance to real truffle flavor. The purpose of this particular test is to determine which brands of white truffle oil are acceptable, without being overly chemical and overpowering.