In a recent issue of a magazine, I read a chef of haute cuisine say that truffle oil is an “entirely synthetic product that has as much to do with natural food as Burger King does with organic beef.” Is this statement accurate? And how is truffle oil usually produced?
Truffle oil is a substitute to not having the real stuff. Maybe this is what he means.
Many truffle oils contain natural flavoring
The definition does not require that a named natural flavor be made from the stuff its named after.
Flavors, natural and otherwise, are a big, fairly secretive, business.
The thing is, the guy who said this quote is a chi-chi, high-end chef who has worked for very notable restaurants, and he seems to be making a blanket statement about all truffle oils. I would imagine that someone of his caliber wouldn’t skimp on buying expensive oils for the meals he prepares; so it seems that he thinks that every truffle oil is bad, even the highest quality ones available.
Perhaps he meant, you need to make your own, otherwise you won’t get what you expect?
It certainly doesn’t read like that. The context of the quote, which can be found in the top part of this page suggests that he never uses it because it’s “synthetic.”