Is National Truffle Day about the candy or the fungus?

The candy. Truffle is one word for two different foods, and May 2 belongs to the chocolate confection rather than to the fungus that grows underground.

Who created National Truffle Day?

Nobody has claimed it. No founder or establishing record has been located, and the earliest datable trace of the day is a calendar listing published in 2014.

National Truffle Day

Next celebratedSunday, May 2, 2027

A truffle is the chocolate that gets eaten one at a time, and never in a hurry. National Truffle Day is a good day to buy a box from a shop that rolls its own and let one stand in for dessert.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEMay 2

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYFood

SUBCATEGORYChocolate

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The trail starts with a 2014 calendar listing.

No founder, sponsor or establishing record has been located for National Truffle Day. The earliest datable trace is a holiday calendar's own listing page, whose embedded markup gives a publication date of 31 March 2014, which sets a floor on how long the day has circulated rather than a founding.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday

INTRO

Truffles are not among the fifteen cacao products the FDA names

Chocolate truffles turn up in a Petaluma newspaper on 23 November 1919, in a small advertisement offering them at five cents each. The advertisement called them "Something entirely new and different." Nothing carries the phrase before that in the California Digital Newspaper Collection.

Five cents then is about 90 cents in July 2026 money. The Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index reads 18.5 for November 1919 and 333.918 for July 2026.

National Truffle Day belongs to that candy. It does not belong to the other truffle, the fungus that grows underground, which has a quite separate place in American law.

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ORIGINS

Truffle Day history

INTRODUCTION

The chocolate truffle built its reputation in a shop rather than a factory. In 1902 a French immigrant named Antoine Dufour opened a chocolate business in London and made the truffle its signature, according to the trade journal Confectionery Production.

That business is Prestat, and its own history page credits Dufour's family with inventing the chocolate truffle in 1895. The account comes from the company itself. The American record starts later, and a long way from London.

CHAPTER 01

Two Petaluma papers, two weeks

Before 1926 the California Digital Newspaper Collection holds ten pages carrying the phrase chocolate truffles. Eight of them are a single advertisement, run over and over in the Petaluma Daily Morning Courier and the Petaluma Argus Courier between 23 November and 7 December 1919. The collection carries nothing under that phrase before it, back to 1846.

CHAPTER 02

From a shop counter to the wires

The last two pages come from Santa Cruz. On 30 October 1924 the Santa Cruz Evening News printed a chocolate truffle recipe credited to the International News Service, five years after the Petaluma advertisements.

So the confection reached American readers twice over in half a decade: first as a novelty priced for pocket change, then as a recipe a home cook could follow.

CHAPTER 03

The London shop runs out of road

Prestat, the business Dufour founded, kept the truffle as its signature for more than a century. In February 2026 it was sold to L'artisan du Chocolat in a pre-pack deal for an undisclosed nominal fee, and its shop in Princes Arcade in central London was set to close.

National Truffle Day sits at the end of that line with no name attached to it. No founder, sponsor or establishing record has been located for the day itself, which leaves the confection's own paper trail to carry it.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Truffle Day

CALENDAR

Four seasons took most of 2025's candy sales, not May.

The National Confectioners Association puts 63% of all 2025 US confectionery sales in four seasons: Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween and the winter holidays. National Truffle Day falls in none of them.

ECONOMY

The category around it is enormous

Americans bought a record $55 billion of chocolate, candy, gum and mints in 2025. Chocolate was 51.7% of that, across all outlets.

LAW

No federal rule says what a truffle is

The Food and Drug Administration lists fifteen standardized cacao products, from cacao nibs to milk chocolate. None of the fifteen is a truffle.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Antoine Dufour opens in London

The French immigrant founded the chocolate business that would make the truffle its signature product.

Petaluma papers advertise truffles

The phrase chocolate truffles makes its earliest appearance in the California Digital Newspaper Collection.

A recipe moves on the wires

The Santa Cruz Evening News printed a chocolate truffle recipe credited to the International News Service.

Roald Dahl writes them into a novel

My Uncle Oswald was published, and the London shop says its truffles are at the centre of it.

The London shop is sold

Prestat went to L'artisan du Chocolat in a pre-pack deal, with its Princes Arcade shop set to close.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Truffle Day

In federal food law, a truffle is a canned vegetable

Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations uses the word twice, both times in one row of a canned vegetable table at 21 CFR 155.200, where "Truffles" is matched with "Fruit of the truffle." The row sits between Swiss chard and turnip greens.

The word ganache is not in the rulebook

Title 21 sets out what may be sold as milk chocolate, as white chocolate or as sweet chocolate. It never uses the word ganache.

The truffle with a state law behind it is the fungus

Section 1 of Oregon Senate Bill 584, enacted in 2025, reads in full: "February of each year is designated as Oregon Truffle Month." The bill was introduced at the request of the Oregon Truffle Festival.

One dictionary headword covers both truffles

Merriam-Webster files the fungus and the candy under a single entry. Sense one is "the dark or light edible subterranean fruiting body of several European ascomycetous fungi"; sense two is "a candy made of chocolate, butter, sugar, and sometimes liqueur shaped into balls and often coated with cocoa."

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Truffle Day

Ask who made the truffles before you buy

Some shops finish their own on the premises and some bring them in ready made. Order a mixed box from one that makes them, so you get more than one centre.

ROLL

Roll a batch at home

The classic version is chocolate, butter and sugar, sometimes with a splash of liqueur, shaped into balls and rolled in cocoa. Work in a cool kitchen and give the mixture time to set before you shape it.

TASTE

Taste a dark one against a milk one

Set two truffles side by side and take the darker one second. The labels repay reading, because milk chocolate and sweet chocolate are separate things under federal rules.

GIVE

Give a box away instead of keeping it

Order to somebody else's address and let the shop tuck in a note. It is a ten minute errand that lands on a day nobody expects a parcel.

LOOK

Look up the 1919 advertisement yourself

The Petaluma papers that carried it are digitised and free to read in the California Digital Newspaper Collection. Set the years to 1919 and search the phrase chocolate truffles.

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