A big problem with truffle oil is that it's too easy to overdo it, which is something you're less likely to do with a $200 black truffle. It's also too easy to add truffle notes to things that aren't really improved by truffle notes. And those two problems compound each other.
It can work pretty well on french fries, though!
True. (And TBH I prefer a decent beer to an equivalent tier of champagne) People get wrapped up in the status element of the luxury good and lose sight of the actual use/enjoyment function of the good itself. If we were more comfortable letting the cheap stuff sing in its own right instead of trying to imitate the expensive things we might open a lot of doors for new innovations.
Your point about truffle oil makes me think of all those 50s cookbooks doing all kinds of weird stuff with gelatin since gelatinizing stuff wasn’t some absurdly laborious and expensive process anymore. It seems like it took a while for people to realize that entombing all foods in gelatin just because you can is actually. . . Not very good. Haha
Still vanillin is artificial, but hardly a terrible thing in its own right. As you said there are recipes where the flatter note of vanillin works better than the more subtle and complex floral notes of true vanilla. I’d argue however that truffle oil is always disgusting, and the issue of it being somehow fake or fraudulent is secondary to how nasty it is.
Still, in an application like ice cream real vanilla in generous amounts is so much nicer than artificial. Of course ice cream producers figured out that most people aren’t able to tell the difference, lacking experience with a reference point. They realized that black flecks in the mix were what people really looked for, so a market emerged. After vanilla extract is made the bean is totally devoid of flavor, but it’s now ground into flecks and sold as an additive and can be legally listed as “vanilla bean” in the ingredients.
On a semi-related note a friend recently told me that “most cinnamon is fake!” It turns out he learned that a lot of cinnamon used is cassia cinnamon, not Ceylon cinnamon. I had to explain to him that they’re both cinnamon, and both great in different applications. If you want bright, spicy cinnamon then cassia is the way to go. If you want floral cinnamon then cinnamomum verum is the way, and if you want something in between with a natural sweetness, Vietnamese cinnamon is it.
Maybe it’s just that I spent a lot of time in Mexico growing up, but I think ceylon cinnamon is better for every purpose I can think of. I wouldn’t describe it as “floral” though.
My impression is that cassia cinnamon is usually used because it is cheaper.
It's a well known fact of cooking, natural vanilla denatures above a rather low temperature (around 50°C or so, if I recall correctly) but artificial vanilla doesn't.
So if you're using vanilla in... crème anglaise (apparently that's the English name for it?) you should use artificial vanilla or pay much attention to adding the vanilla only after it has cooled down enough, but if you're doing ice cream then natural vanilla is a good choice.
A bit of a shock when a steak sandwich came slathered in it, and the menu made no mention of this
Fortunately the person who ordered it didn't mind, but I would've sent it back
They could just pitch these as cheaper substitutions and it wouldn’t be so annoying.