Okay, when I say truffle, I mean the chocolate. Period. At least in terms of things I’d like to put into my mouth. 😉 But I am, of course, also aware of the fungus sold for ridiculous amounts of money that answers to the same name. And I’ve wondered why these two very different foods share a name.
Truffle, the fungus, most certainly came first. It dates as an English word from the 1500s, taken from French, which is in turn from a Latin word meaning “edible root.” Truffles have long been considered a delicacy in Europe, and both dogs and pigs have been trained to hunt them (as seen in The Lost Heiress–the one time I used the word truffle and didn’t mean chocolate, LOL.)
So where did the confection version come from? Apparently, these delightful chocolates were invented in the 1920s and given the name truffle because they resembled the fungus and were a special treat.
Hmm. Not sure I approve of the connection, LOL. But I definitely do approve of the confection!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.