Friday · January 04 2008
I saw a short bit this morning on TV where some fancy NYC chef was cooking up his version of a $50 grilled cheese sandwich. Why $50? Sure, the bread was homemade and the cheese was top of the line Fontina cheese, but that's got to be $20 tops even if the chef autographs the sandwich, right? Well he also loaded the thing with black truffles.
I've never had a black truffle and I know they're rare and around $5,000 a pound, so my question to anyone who has had a black (or white) truffle: do they just automatically make everything taste like sex on 12-grain bread or are they an acquired taste that would make you say, “I just paid wha for wha?”
Truffles are great, but you have to use enough to really taste them. A lot of restaurants put just a little bit of truffle in things to make them sound all haute cuisine on the menu. It's almost like the culinary version of homeopathy (and to my way of thinking, about as efficacious).
As for the taste, if you like mushrooms, you'll probably like truffles. If you don't, then truffles probably aren't going to do it for you either.
Come to think of it, mushrooms might be a cool addition to my everyday grilled cheese sandwich. I'll have to give that a try.