This seemed unlikely. When I asked Mr. Tio, he gave me a funny look. “Natural?” he said, rolling his eyes. “Nooo ...”  Truffle companies are secretive, and speaking to their representatives does little to illuminate their production techniques. I was told by Federico Balestra at Sabatino Tartufi that its oil is now “100 percent organic,” made from dried truffles and other ingredients with flavors “similar to truffle.” Vittorio Giordano of Urbani Tartufi called its manufacturing method, though conducted in a laboratory, a “natural process.” He described the essence that his company uses as “something from the truffle that is not the truffle.”  Whereas once truffles were hallmarks of local cooking — black in France and white in Italy — the globalization of cuisine has led to worldwide demand for an ingredient whose output continues to decline. As with some highly collectible wines, the virulent combination of high value and scarcity have created an environment ripe for fraudulent behavior. French agencies conduct chemical analyses of black truffles to ensure that they are not inferior Chinese or Spanish truffles soaked in truffle oil or juice. White truffles from other areas of Italy have been known to show up at the Alba market, summer truffles passed off as winter. But when it comes to the oil, chefs are helping to perpetuate the fraud. Why?  Call it the LVMH-ization of cooking. Truffles have become a luxury brand, one that connotes a way of life as much as a style of cooking. “Chefs use truffle oil because it’s easy to add a gloss of glamour with it — and because it helps sell dishes,” S. Irene Virbila, chief restaurant critic of The Los Angeles Times, said in an e-mail message.  Although the scent of a truffle just dug can be one of the most profound gustatory experiences of the Western world, it’s one that not many people in this country have had on truffles’ native soil. Once there were only a few expensive and exclusive restaurants that recreated that experience, which only select customers could afford. Truffle oil has simultaneously democratized and cheapened the truffle experience, creating a knockoff that goes by the same name.  The competitiveness of the restaurant scene has a lot to do with this trend. What most people know of truffles is truffle “aroma,” which has helped shape their expectations of what they’re paying for — and how much they should have to pay to get it. “Price is definitely a factor,” said Shea Gallante of Cru in Manhattan, who uses black truffle oil to reinforce the flavor of real black truffles in a midwinter pasta dish. “If I didn’t use the two drops of oil I would have to add another 8 to 10 grams of truffle,” he said, making the dish too expensive for his clientele. Many chefs agree that the quality of truffles in this country has fallen in recent years, added to the fact that every minute a truffle spends out of the ground enervates its flavor. The increased scrutiny of imported goods hasn’t helped; prolonged stays in customs might be keeping the country safe from exploding fungi, but it’s not doing much for the truffle’s aromatic intensity.  And Americans, as many were quick to note, like big flavors. “People expect the slap in the face of truffle oil,” said Jonathan Gold, the restaurant critic for LA Weekly. “They have lost their taste for subtlety; they want bigger than life flavors that are amped up with aromatics. That’s American cooking at the moment.” Many chefs are turning to truffle oil as a way to get truffle aromas that, as many chefs put it, “jump off the plate,” often dressing real truffles in the oil before sending them to the table to heighten their effect. It raises the question, What will happen when there is a synthetic heirloom tomato scent or an imitation ripe peach flavor? Are we moving toward an era of fake food?  Probably not. Truffle oil seems unique in this regard. Most chefs I spoke with said they were undisturbed by its artificiality, although they are quite concerned with its “proper” usage, which chiefly comes down to restraint: less, in this case, is more. This is curious, considering that the same chefs will say in the next breath that the best way to use real truffles is in profusion. Some call truffle oil “authentic” only when used in conjunction with real truffles, while others maintain that they like it for what it is, something altogether different.  “I used to use white truffle oil a lot, but now I only use a little bit in my liquid black truffle ravioli,” Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago told me. “It adds a little more perfume, a slightly different flavor. I cut my teeth cooking at the French Laundry, and when we were using truffles there was always a bottle close by. But after I was on my own for a while I started to ask myself why I was using it, and I didn’t have a good answer. It doesn’t even taste like truffle.”  Chris L’Hommedieu, chef de cuisine at Michael Mina in San Francisco, used truffle oils during his tenure as chef de cuisine at Per Se in New York, although he said he never developed a taste for them. But when asked how much of his aversion to truffle oil was due to its artificiality, he told me: “One hundred percent. I learned that from Jean-Louis.”  Mr. L’Hommedieu’s recollection involved the late chef Jean-Louis Palladin, with whom he worked at Palladin, a Manhattan restaurant that is now closed. Returning from a trip out of town, Mr. Palladin was enraged to walk into the kitchen and find that in his absence bottles of truffle oil had cropped up everywhere. Grabbing two of them, he called the staff out to the alley behind the restaurant where the garbage was held. He hurled the oil at the side of the building, smashing the glass bottles against the wall. “It’s full of chemicals,” he screamed at his confused and frightened staff members, who scrambled back to the kitchen through the gathering scent of truffle oil mingled with the fetid air of the alley. “No more!”  I couldn’t have said it better myself.  Daniel Patterson is the chef and owner of Coi, a restaurant in San Francisco. With this column, De Gustibus returns to The New York Times as an occasional forum for various writers to employ opinion, argument or provocation in reflections on food or drink.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page F1 of the New York edition with the headline: Hocus-Pocus, And a Beaker Of Truffles. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
In many restaurants across the country, the truffle flavor advertised on the menu comes not from the actual product but from a laboratory-made ingredient.