And back to El Paradiso!
Oh, so glad to see the warm rainy days recede; out on the evening walk, down by Lake Union, throngs of people were seemingly delirious with sun and cool breezes. A large bagpipe and drum corps was rehearsing unfamiliar music, not the wheezy cliche tunes one associates with this odd instrument; it was lovely. Kites were flying, people were embracing, dogs were fetching and madly dashing about with kids; there was a group of beginners learning conga drumming. As I went up the hill past an intriguing little restaurant that serves popcorn with truffle oil and a glass of wine to those waiting for a table, strains from a sharp jazz combo floated out from the courtyard. I just learned this evening that truffles exude an aroma similar to human sexual pheremones. One either responds to it, or not.
posted by isabelita at 2:35 PM
4 Comments:
That's interesting (about the truffles). How did you learn this?
Imp, we were watching a show on the Travel Channel called "Best Places to Find Cash and Treasure", or something like that. They were featuring people in Oregon who hunt truffles, and one little bit they went into was this stuff about the fragrance of truffles. The hostess/narrator riffed about how ordering truffles might be a good thing to do on a first date, to see if your date responded positively. So, anecdotal, but perhaps there is Googleable scientific research on it out there...
OK. I've Googled.
There was also a study of Oregon truffles where the men were pretty much all over them but most of the women were neutral or did not like them. Hmph.
Here's the money bit from Discover Magazine:
Pigs like the smell, a lot. In 1981 some German researchers discovered that black truffles contain androstenol, a sex hormone found in the saliva of male pigs (and under the arms of male humans). This led to all kinds of speculation about pigs, sex, and truffles, which Talou proved was hogwash. After identifying the chemical components of truffle aroma, Talou succeeded in synthesizing the nine most important ones, which do not include androstenol, and mixing them into a chemical cocktail that would fool most human noses. (Pébeyre, a truffle merchant in Cahors, now makes a truffle oil with this synthetic aroma.) In one of a series of experiments in the early 1990s, Talou buried samples of the synthetic aroma at various points under an oak tree, real truffles at other points, and samples of androstenol at still others. He found that pigs ignored the androstenol. On the other hand, they grubbed for real truffles and the synthetic scent with equal enthusiasm— in the latter case, they had to be restrained from eating the scented dirt and rocks. Their hunger seems not to be sexual in nature.
I love black truffles. Yum.
Ah, it figures that it was just puffery. I like them, too, kathyr.
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