Foods of love? Not so fast, Casanova

3) Truffles
The myth: The lore surrounding these precious, pungent underground fungi is nearly endless. Many accounts attribute their alleged aphrodisiac qualities to French gastronomer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who considered the topic in his legendary book, “The Physiology of Taste.”

Brillat-Savarin actually concluded that the truffle “is not a positive aphrodisiac, but it may under certain circumstances render women more affectionate, and men more amiable.” He further determined that even mentioning the word “awakens erotic and gourmand ideas” in men and women alike.

But New Zealand truffle grower Gareth Renowden, author of “The Truffle Book,” notes that truffles’ reputation as a progenitor of passion likely extends back even further, given their prominence in royal French cooking as early as 1651, when Louis XIV’s chef, La Varenne, published the first French cookbook.

Such lore was further enhanced by the practice of truffle hunting, usually conducted by specially trained pigs.  The truffle's musky scent has long been considered the apparent draw for sows who, as some tell it, detect in the truffle’s sultry aroma the very same smells that emanate from a male pig’s saliva — essentially an olfactory mating call.

No surprise truffle hunters struggle to keep their trusty helpers from devouring the rare fungi.

The reality: In the words of James Trappe, an Oregon State University researcher and perhaps the leading U.S. truffle expert: “The aphrodisiac effect of truffles has never been objectively demonstrated.”

Truffles contain the pheromone androstenol, and its precursor, the steroid androstenone. Both are responsible for the musky odor, and can have an amorous effect on pigs, which is why they’re also found in a spray called Boar Mate, used by farmers to help calm sows during artificial insemination.

Which is fine and good for pigs, but what about humans?  Both androstenone and androstenol, along with the related steroid androstadienone, are used in the sort of aphrodisiac sprays and colognes you find advertised in the back of magazines. But no clinical link exists between their effects on pigs and on people.

Work by University of Chicago researcher Martha McClintock found that androstadienone, produced by men’s bodies, could improve womens’ moods but didn’t impact sexual response.

Other research by Thierry Talou of the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse, France, identified dimethyl sulfide — also a crucial component in cabbage's smell — as the key pig-attracting element in a truffle’s scent. Talou created a synthetic truffle aroma from nine chemical components found in truffles, not including androstenol. He found pigs eager to chase down the fake scent, yet they ignored scattered samples of androstenol. And cabbage, thus far, hasn't hit the aphrodisiac list.

A more likely theory is that the smell of musk — a popular cologne ingredient — has become so frequently associated with romance that truffle love is simply an extension of a well-established behavioral link.

“We’ve generally connected musky scent to sexual experiences,” says Rachel Herz, a psychologist at Brown University who studies the interplay of scent and emotion. “The connection to truffles is a corollary, due to their musky scent and its connotation.”

Harvard Medical School’s Robert Shmerling has another notion, not only for truffles but for caviar, snails and other rare foods: It’s the rarity itself, and possibly the cost, that appeals. Rolls Royces don’t emit pheromones, but they signal wealth, which is its own sort of aphrodisiac.

Or as Trappe puts it: “If a swain thinks truffles are aphrodisiacs, maybe that's all that's needed.”