Andrew Saladino Blog

I have eaten chocolate truffles plenty of times. I enjoyed them and never gave the name much thought.

Somewhere along the way, I apparently decided that they contained real truffles. I did not expect visible shavings inside. I assumed the truffle was ground up, infused into the chocolate, or added through some fancy technique I did not understand.

This seemed reasonable. They are called truffle chocolates.

Then I went to dinner with some friends, and we ordered a small white plate of very expensive chocolate truffles for dessert. The price came up, and I said something about real truffles being expensive.

My friends looked confused.

I explained my completely reasonable assumption. They explained that chocolate truffles do not contain truffles. They are called truffles because someone thought the little balls of chocolate looked like the fungus.

I had apparently invented an ingredient and an entire production process.

This naming system makes no sense. Carrot cake contains carrots. Crab cakes contain crab. Peanut butter cups contain peanut butter. But a chocolate truffle contains no truffle at all.

We do not call mashed potatoes “vanilla ice cream” because they can both be served in scoops. We do not call meatballs “savory donut holes.” Resembling another food should not give you permission to steal its name.

The strange part is that I had never questioned any of this. I ate chocolate truffles for years, enjoyed them, and quietly assumed there was an expensive fungus mixed in somewhere.

There wasn’t.

The chocolates were still good. Their name is nonsense, and now I’m annoyed.