Truffle Oil and Truffle Juice

French chefs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were forever combining their favorite salad ingredients—vegetables, seafood, and meat—with sliced, shaved, or julienned black, and occasionally white, truffles. Sadly, truffles are just one of those things that most of us have to do without. Even those among us who may buy a truffle or two as a holiday splurge can’t count on them as an everyday staple the way Escoffier and his clientele did at the turn of the last century. Truffle oil and truffle juice can help us all through this unfortunate circumstance. Neither of these is cheap, but both provide the flavor if not the texture and black color of the real thing. The situation is complicated by the big differences among brands. Some of the oils and juices are so intensely flavored that a couple of teaspoons in half a cup of sauce will more than do the trick; with others, half the bottle is required. I’d recommend specific brands, but even bottles from the same manufacturer seem to differ. You can buy small bottles of truffle oil and truffle juice and try them out, but even this is an expensive and potentially discouraging undertaking.