Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous

Level 2 l Upper intermediate

1 Warmer
a. Name your favourite …

• pizza toppings
• sandwich fillings
• crisp flavours
• types of popcorn.

b. Compare your answers.

c. Would you like to eat pizza, sandwiches, crisps or popcorn with truffle?

2 Key words
Match the key words with the definitions. Then find them in the article to read them in context. The
paragraph numbers are given to help you.

demand ubiquitous harvest decadence disgust orchard

1. present everywhere ________________________ (title)

2. a very strong feeling of not liking something ________________________ (para 1)

3. the amount of a product that people want or the fact that they want it ________________________ (para 3)

4. an area of land where fruit trees are grown ________________________ (para 4)

5. so much pleasure that it almost seems morally wrong ________________________ (para 5)

6. the amount of a crop that is collected ________________________ (para 6)

legitimize crop transparency cultivate craze swanky

7. a large amount of plants that are grown for food that can be collected in one year
________________________ (para 6)

8. make something legal ________________________ (para 7)

9. collect plants, animals or other things that can be eaten or used ________________________ (para 7)

10. an honest way of doing things that allows other people to know exactly what you are doing
________________________ (para 8)

11. something that suddenly becomes very popular but often for only a short time ________________________
(para 9)

12. fashionable and expensive ________________________ (para 12)

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NEWS LESSONS / Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous / Upper intermediate
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Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
Truffle chips, truffle pizza, truffle
popcorn … how a luxury item
became ubiquitous
Clare Finney
23 May, 2019
1 The smell hits you first: a mix of petroleum, garlic,
fungi and warm earth after rain, followed by
peppery olive oil. Next comes that deep, savoury
flavour. This is what luxury tastes like. I am on the
sofa, in my pyjamas, watching the Netflix series
Chef’s Table and eating a snack that would
make Italian chefs tear out their hair in disgust:
truffle popcorn.
2 Handmade in London by “gourmet popcorn” brand
Joe & Sephs, this is one of the everyday foods that
now use an ingredient that more usually belongs
to haute cuisine. Ten years ago, the flavour of
truffle was an imagined treat: I had smelled it,
at the truffle stall Tartufaia in London’s Borough
Market, but never had the pleasure of eating it.
Just in the past fortnight, I’ve had truffle with pizza,
mashed potato, popcorn and macaroni cheese.
3 We are obsessed or at least those of us who
like truffles are. “The people who love it really,
really love it,” says Jess Seaton, the co-founder
of Crate brewery in east London, “but it is an
acquired taste.” Her sage, potato and truffle pizza
is something “people travel for miles and miles to
eat”. Spanish importers Brindisa recently bought
extra storage space to cope with demand for its
Torres truffle crisps. Street food outlet Sub-Cult,
which made its name with its braised portobello
mushroom-stuffed sandwhich with truffle
mayonnaise, opened its first restaurant in June,
2019, in the City of London.
4 Outside of London, you can find truffle macaroni
cheese in Birmingham, truffle fries and truffle
mashed potatoes in Liverpool, a black truffle base
pizza in Brighton and truffle and parmesan chips
around the country. Sales of truffle products have
risen so much at Waitrose supermarkets that it
recently planted its own black-truffle orchard. In
Waitrose now, you’ll find a brie with mushroom
and truffle, and a truffle-flavoured pecorino
cheese, as well as Joe and Seph’s popcorn and
truffle crisps from Tyrrells.
5 For thousands of years, the truffle, particularly the
white winter truffle, has symbolized decadence.
“The ancient Greeks called it the food of the
gods,” says Mario Prati, owner of Tartufaia.
© Springer Nature Limited 2019. Macmillan Education is part of the Springer Nature Group.
NEWS LESSONS / Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous / Upper intermediate
6 So how can the makers of crisps and popcorn
now afford to offer truffle-flavoured snacks? It’s
true that the cost of white winter truffles went
down in autumn, 2018, thanks to an unusually big
harvest, but 2018’s prices of £1,783 to £2,229 a
kilo are still expensive, and even their “cheaper”
cousins, black truffles, cost around £750. Truffle
farms – where hazel and oak trees are injected
with the black truffle fungus – have definitely
increased the number of truffles, but they are not
reliable, says Prati. “It takes ten years to get the
first crop, so you don’t know until then whether
they have grown successfully.”
7 Instead, he says, it is truffle oil that’s the reason
why everyone can afford truffles, together with
its key ingredient: synthetic flavouring. It’s no
secret that chefs and producers use truffle oil.
It is on menus and the backs of packets. What
is surprising is that truffle oil’s flavour does not
come from the small bits of truffle you can see
inside the bottle but from the added flavouring.
Although truffle’s natural flavour clings to animal
fats, it does not stick to plant-based olive or
rapeseed oils. The piece of black truffle you find
in a bottle of truffle oil is for decorative purposes
and to legitimize the use of “truffle” on the label.
The flavour and distinctive truffle smell come from
laboratory-made flavouring, created to
taste and smell like the stronger white winter
truffle, which only grows in Italy and cannot be
cultivated elsewhere.
8 “There is nothing wrong with it,” Prati says, “but
it’s a matter of transparency. People assume that
the black truffle slice is giving the flavour to the
oil, but black truffle doesn’t smell or taste like
that.” Prati doesn’t object to using truffle oil. He
just wishes there was more honesty in its use
and production. “We’re more concerned about
where things come from these days,” says food
expert Morgaine Gaye. “We want to know what
we’re eating is natural, and the idea of truffles
represents that.” Even if truffle oil is artificial, “the
flavour is earthy and natural. It feels real.”
9 But the truffle craze is not only because of the
affordable oil prices. “Truffle has that umami,
savoury taste you get in miso and tahini,” Gaye
says. “It’s part of a move away from sweetness
towards more exotic, savoury flavours – and it’s
part of the rising interest in the health benefits
of fungi.”
10 “Historically, umami fans ate other ingredients
like anchovy or parmesan to get that savoury
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Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
taste,” agrees Shokofeh Hejazi, from The Food
People, a global food trends and ideas agency.
“The development of products with truffle flavours
means that this umami flavour is more available
to everyone.”
11 Then there is the explosion of the “affordable
luxury” market. “When we launched Joe &
Seph’s in 2010,” says Joe Sopher, the company’s
co-founder, “we immediately noticed that people
were buying our popcorn to go with Netflix, as
something gourmet but affordable. Our popcorn
is handmade by pastry chefs using quality
ingredients, and the truffle oil we use contains
white truffles as well as truffle flavour. But it is £4
a bag.”
12 Crisp-maker Tyrrells, meanwhile, is
experimenting with what it calls “swanky” flavours
such as posh prawn cocktail, Aberdeen Angus
beef and, of course, black truffle crisps, with
dried black-truffle powder and dried porcini
mushrooms.
13 I recently went to Brindisa in Borough Market only
to find the truffle crisp shelf empty. “Excuse me,” I
asked, “do you have any Torres’ truffle crisps?”
14 “I’m afraid we’re sold out, madam,” came the
reply. “Have you tried their new caviar crisps?”
© Guardian News and Media 2019
First published in The Guardian, 23/05/19

3 Comprehension check
Are these sentences true (T) or false (F) according to the information in the article? Correct any that
are false.

1. Truffles have become very cheap in the past few years.

2. Many everyday ordinary foods now have a truffle flavour.
3. The truffle flavour in these foods often comes from oil that is made to taste of truffles, not from real pieces
of truffle.
4. Olive oil will taste of truffles when a piece of truffle is placed in the bottle and it is kept for a year.
5. The piece of truffle in truffle oil allows producers to call their inexpensive foods ‘truffle-flavoured’.
6. The craze for truffle-flavoured foods has led one British supermarket chain to grow its own truffles.
7. Truffles are very fast growing and the first crop can be harvested within two years.
8. Truffles have become popular because people like their umami taste and because they think fungi are healthy.

4 Expressions
Find and underline the expressions in the article. Then match them to the explanations.

1. haute cuisine a. became well known

2. an acquired taste b. very good cooking, especially French cooking
3. made its name c. something you don’t like at first but you slowly become used to
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NEWS LESSONS / Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous / Upper intermediate
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 Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
5 Discussion
• Highlight all the food items and combinations in the article.
o Which of them would you like to try?

• What other affordable luxury food items have you heard about?
o Have you bought or tried any of them? Give further details.

• What food items that were not available in the past do you now regularly buy? For example, frozen
pizza, exotic fruit and vegetables, …
o Approximately when did they first become available or ubiquitous?
o Can you remember when you first tried or bought them?
o Do you think they are an acquired taste?

6 Research and presentation

Choose one of the topics. Then research and present it.
1. Find out more about truffles – where they grow naturally, how they are found and how they are harvested in
the wild.
OR
2. Umami is one of the five basic tastes. What are the other four? How do we taste the difference between them?
Give examples of everyday and luxury food items for each taste.

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NEWS LESSONS / Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous / Upper intermediate
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Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous
Level 2 l Upper intermediate
KEY

2 Key words 4 Expressions

1. ubiquitous 1. b
2. disgust 2. c
3. demand 3. a
4. orchard
5. decadence
6. harvest
7. crop
8. legitimize
9. cultivate
10. transparency
11. craze
12. swanky

3 Comprehension check

1. F – They are still expensive.

2. T
3. T
4. F –Truffle’s natural flavour does not stick to
olive oil.
5. T
6. T
7. F – It takes up to ten years to get the first crop.
8. T

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© Springer Nature Limited 2019. Macmillan Education is part of the Springer Nature Group.
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NEWS LESSONS / Truffle: how a luxury item became ubiquitous / Upper intermediate
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