> They didn't say it tasted no different from olive oil, they said it was olive oil, with artificial flavoring added. Which is true.
Of course, "real" truffle oil is also oil from some other source (usually olive), with natural flavoring (consisting primarily of the same actual compound in the "fake" version) added (IIRC, often by proximity rather than direct contact, which keeps a lot of the elements of truffle flavor that are present in whole truffles out of the oil, achieving a result not very much unlike the "fake" truffle oil in how it differs from the flavor of whole truffles.)
Yeah. Not really different from the fake stuff IMHO.
Real, unadulterated truffle oil, if it even does exist today, is extraordinarily rare: like, more difficult than getting fresh truffles. This is largely because truffles simply don't transfer their flavor to oil well.
I'm a culinary school trained former chef that worked in some pretty high end restaurants and I've never seen it in person. Neither did Daniel Patterson with the NYT when he tried to track some down. What I have seen a lot of is the usual sort of truffle oil with little bits of dried truffle in it for show though.
Of course, "real" truffle oil is also oil from some other source (usually olive), with natural flavoring (consisting primarily of the same actual compound in the "fake" version) added (IIRC, often by proximity rather than direct contact, which keeps a lot of the elements of truffle flavor that are present in whole truffles out of the oil, achieving a result not very much unlike the "fake" truffle oil in how it differs from the flavor of whole truffles.)