Which would be less damaging in the White
House – Donald Trump, or this expensive, yet offensively odorous, fungus?
Bear with me.
No, I don’t mean to suggest, by way of comparison, that The Orange One is the “gold standard.”
No, I don’t mean he is a much-coveted,
in-demand delicacy that we should all be shaving over our artisanal pappardelle.
I mean that one of these things is showy,
expensive, elitist, impossible to make any practical use of, and leaves a
lingering odour. The other is all those things, and also poised to become the
leader of the free world.
Have you ever actually eaten truffles? Here’s
an insider tip: they’re made out to be all that, but they’re kind of gross.
Because I am a latte-sipping,
freedom-hating, leftie elitist, I have actually been to Tuscany, the heart of
truffle country, and I went during the truffle harvest. My husband and my
(then) one year old and I had truffles enthusiastically showered over every
goddamn meal we ordered. It was fun at first – part “we’re so fancy” mixed with
part “how AUTHENTIC is this shit???” We felt like we were getting the best of
the best. No one else could ever eat pasta this good, we smugly told ourselves,
because it had the freshest truffle on it, harvested by molto autentico truffle
pigs in the ancient Tuscan forest that very morning, and truffle is one of the
most expensive things you can eat. It was, then, and quite simply, The Best. It
was Tremendous.
But a week or so in we noticed a kind of
truffle fatigue setting in. Truffle is a strong, almost obnoxious flavour. It’s
pungent as all get out. That’s why most chefs use it sparingly – too much of it
and you start to feel overwhelmed, nauseous even.
Halfway through the trip, still enamoured of
the idea that we were eating The Most Tremendous Meals Ever, I bought a small
jar of truffle-infused olive oil at a local deli. That jar is still sitting in
my fridge, three years later, and it’s probably about time I threw it out,
because I haven’t used it once.
Why? Well, for one, it stinks. Whenever I open
the lid of this fungus grease, it sucks all the air out of a room. Like an
explosive, gold-plated fart, it forces everyone in the vicinity to either stop
what they’re doing and studiously avoid mentioning it, or (in the case of less
inhibited souls) interrupt conversation with an incredulous “What the fuck is that stuff?”
The thing about truffles, though, is that a
lot of people are willing to pay a lot of money for them, simply because there
is an acknowledged convention that they are valuable. It’s like the Michelin
guide: it’s not so much that the institution itself intuits what is good or
worthy in the entire global population of restaurants. How could they possibly
know that? They dissemble about the fact that they can’t know that with claims
of preternaturally intuitive “taste”. We know what’s good. We know what’s good
for you. Just trust us.
This is precisely the kind of elitist
paternalism that has driven so many ordinary voters—in the UK during the Brexit
vote, in Colombia during the recent referendum to end FARC warfare, and in this
horribly momentous US election—to turn out to the ballot box solely because
they have a burning desire to deliver a massive middle finger to the ruling
elite. Yet, beyond this totally understandable anarchic impulse, a terrifyingly large percentage of the American populace has been convinced to invest a metric
fuck-ton of psychic energy—let alone, if figures are correct, their paltry
savings—in Trump and Trumpism. Why? Because he claims not only to know, but in
fact to be, The Best. Like his hotel
lobbies, he is gold-plated, the universal shorthand for insecure
over-compensating toxic masculinity. Everything about him screams truffle: he’s
ostentatious, flaunts his exclusivity, he impinges on every other conversation
around him. He is the anti-elitist’s elitist.
By the way, Donald Trump’s Toronto
restaurant is called “America.” Truffle fries are $10.
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