Yeah I'm French too and second that. But also, I wasn't aware before reading this article that there was such a hype around truffles in the rest of the world? Why is everyone offering truffle-this and truffle-that? In France in my experience truffle dishes are quite rare and done in specialized restaurants. There are certainly counter-examples, but I don't think you can find many truffle-flavored pizzas in Paris for example.
Counterpoint: grocery stores in Paris regularly sell synthetic truffle flavored potato chips.
Speaking as an American who lived in France for several years in many different cities both metropolitan et d'outre-mer, from Paris to Entre-Deux and everywhere in-between, I can tell you that a lot of how French people feel about food in their own country stems largely from aspect blindness, and a lot of how Americans feel about food in France stems largely from never actually living there. France has the same flavors and foods available as everywhere else in roughly the same proportion if you spend the time looking.
There are differences of course. The US has many more different varieties of every kind of produce. In Paris you find "an apple" or "a lettuce", while in the US you have to choose between 10 different varieties side-by-side. On the flip side, France has many more varieties of pureed pork generally available.
In the US I can go to the supermarket and get "truffle macaroni and cheese" in a box for $5, because everyone knows that truffles are this rare, mysterious, and luxurious thing, and so incorporating them (or their essence) into relatively inexpensive food items allows companies to tack a small amount onto the price, but gives the consumers the feeling that even this luxurious thing is available to them.
Similar to why people might knowingly buy knock-off "designer" items.
I don't think anyone falls for that, everyone knows they cannot buy a truffle for $5. They buy it for the taste, wherever it comes from (e.g. crude oil) and that's ok.
I dunno (nor care) about the quality of a Gucci handbag but the Porsche is actually a high-end car, so while there very much is “status” associated, at least you’re getting something cool/fun as hell at the same time.
haha and I guess the camembert you have with your fake truffle is also fake camembert ^^ (I live in France and even here a lot of camembert in supermarkets are tasteless industrial crap made with pasterised milk, so I'd imagine in the rest of the world it must be pretty bad...)
> I can go to the supermarket and get "truffle macaroni and cheese" in a box for $5, because everyone knows that truffles are this rare, mysterious, and luxurious thing
I'm sorry and I'm not picking on you or trying to be smart, but this doesn't make sense: anything you buy for $5 in a supermarket is neither rare nor luxurious, by definition. Why do people fall for this.
Fresh in-season produce direct from a high-quality local farm can definitely be rare and luxurious even if it's sold in a supermarket for $5. This is especially true of things that are only in season for a few weeks and are from a farm small enough to only sell to supermarkets within a few miles.
These things may seem commonplace locally, but to people on the other side of the country these "cheap" things can be a rare luxury.
The price of a Lexus is nowhere near that of a Ferrari. A Mercedes is also essentially a Toyota with nicer interior and more gadgets - if you want to put it that way.
It seems like you’re putting additional meaning into luxury beyond “much more money and looks like that”. There is no inherent value for that extra, afaic.
It is all marketing. The US has been about 'lifestyle' brands for a while. The US wants to sell you an upscale experience, whether it is really upscale or not. Things with truffle flavor seem to be a fad at the moment.
Think about Starbucks. You don't need a $7 coffee drink, but its sweet and tasty, maybe you like the homey atmosphere and fake friendliness from the staff, maybe you like using the fancy names, maybe you like being seen with your Starbucks cup, all because you too can afford a luxury lifestyle. Its all marketing to sell you overpriced coffee and milk.
I much prefer the abundance of smaller privately owned shops you tend to find in Europe over the factory made franchise options you see all over the US. Most Americans seem to have no idea.
Not sure why are you singling out US here. People all over the world like "ecsotic foreign" stuff and pay premium for it. Starbucks has 2000+ stores in Europe despite having a lot of smaller (and sometimes shittier) smaller shops. Same as in US.
The truffle flavor is no different from the fake "college t-shirts"[1] that big pseudo-american chains like NewYorker[2] sell all over the Europe.
The quality and price vary a lot, from a simple white base with truffle-flavored oil poured on top to slices of actual truffle, but truffle-flavored pizzas are on the menu of lots of restaurants in Paris.
American food has historically been focused on being cheap and filling (this isn’t new: you can find 18th century British tourists complaining about how the colonies mostly had overcooked flavorless meat) and for a long time somewhat industrial in focus (large scale distribution of bland things).
That started to change in the 1970s and 80s but that still tended to be focused on specific ingredients (which have producers advertising them heavily) with the same expectation that they’re available year round everywhere. There were whole campaigns promoting things like Angus beef as a premium ingredient rather than the more easily produced but less flavorful breed it actually is.
Truffle derivatives fit well into that: toss some “truffle salt” or oil onto the same hamburger or French fries you were serving last week and it’s now $10 more expensive. The truffle products don’t need to be local or in season, so anyone can do that. Plus since the flavor change is quite modest most of your customers will consider buying it.
My understanding is that this impression is heavily colored by WWII-era shortages, and also the difference between country and urban availability of fresh ingredients before then.
It’s really weird. But truffle stuff outside of France mostly comes from truffle oil which is really intense in flavor (personally I like it), much different from truffle dishes you can get in high end restaurants in France (which personally I like, but isn’t the crazy flavor people seem to think it is, I even got the VGE soup at Bocuse and it’s Ok guys)
