Posted: 29 October 2009 at 11:22pm | IP Logged

What makes the most expensive food worth its price? Did I hear you say quality, availability, and cost of production? You’re absolutely correct! Every step it took in marketing and producing these prize foods to get to you makes them the most expensive food in the world. As the common phrase goes, “You deserve the very best”. But does the price necessarily mean that the food is best for you?

Kobe Beef

Known as “the Caviar of Meats”, Kobe beef is a breed of Wagyu cattle in Japan. The prime beef is known for having unsaturated fat with a marble appearance that gives its rich flavor and tender texture. Like all live-stocks they end in a sad faith even though these breeds are fortunate to live the high life. They are fed a special diet of rice, beans, rice bran, and beer. They are also given daily massages in sake–rice wine–or the Japanese gin schochu, in order to knead out the fat throughout the muscle tissues and to prevent the cattle from muscle soreness which may hinder its appetite. When the cattle are to be slaughtered, it is done in a humane and painless way to keep the meat tender. A pound of Kobe beef is around $150. In restaurants, a dish would cost about $300.

Kopi Luwak coffee

Imagine drinking coffee with a smooth almost syrupy texture and a natural earthy flavor with a hint of chocolate and caramel. I’m sure you would never have imagined this to come from the feces of an animal.

The most expensive coffee in the world is called Kopi Luwak from the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Sulawesi in Indonesia and from some islands in the Philippines. Its name literally translates to coffee and Asian Palm Civet, a cat or weasel-like animal. Luwaks only pick and eat the sweetest red coffee cherries. As the cherries are digested the stomach enzymes give the beans its unique bittersweet taste. The undigested inner beans are then separated from the animals dropping and processed into the famous gourmet coffee. The reason why the coffee is prized extravagantly, from $300 to $600 a pound, is because only 500 pounds of this coffee is produced annually.

White Truffle

Who would ever think that fungi would be part of this list? The best quality of white truffles is known to come from the Piedmont region of northern Italy. These seasonal underground mushrooms grow near the roots of trees and are known to be very difficult to cultivate or even nearly impossible. Though the name is cute, the appearance and flavor depicts otherwise. White truffles look like dirty, lumpy potatoes and have an earthy cheese-like flavor with a distinct pungent “aroma”. Truffles are served fresh to preserve its flavor, usually just a couple of shavings over a dish. A pound of white truffles ranges from $1,000 to $2,000. In 2007, billionaire Stanley Ho made a record by paying a hefty price of $330,000 for a single truffle that weighed just over three pounds.

Saffron

This classic spice is primarily produced in Spain, Greece, Iran, and India. The three bright red colored stigmas of the purple Crocus Sativus Linneaus flower are individually handpicked, dried then slightly fermented to produce saffron. It takes 50,000 to 75,000 flowers, the size of a football field of cultivated crocus to make 1 pound of dried saffron, which sells for about $500 to $5,000. Luckily this “world’s most expensive spice” is sold more conveniently by the gram about $6 to $9. With just a sprinkle of a few threads this spice is known to give dishes a unique hint of aroma and taste.

Edible Gold Leaf

The thin fragile flakes of gold make them edible, like any other mineral supplements such as calcium and iron. But like the purpose of sprinkles over a cupcake, it doesn’t have much health benefits to the human diet nor does it enhance the flavor of the dish. Gold Leaves are what they say “over the top” decorations. Scatter gold dust on any dessert and it would instantly look like it’s made for royalty and price wise, it literally is. A pound cost about $15,000, a painful dent in your wallet. So like saffron, it is sold more conveniently by the gram. 1 gram of 23kt would cost $82 and one of the smallest quantities would be 12 pieces of 2X2 gold sheets for $30.

Kona Nigari Water

Off the shores of Hawaii a pipeline is sucking up water located 2,000 feet below and bottling it for export to the U.S. and Japan. The Kona Nigari is desalinated deep-sea mineral water concentrate which is believed to be free from modern pollution. Two ounce of this sells for $33.50. The demand for the most expensive water is based on health benefits, which still needs to be further studied to be proven true.

Bird’s Nest Soup

About 400 years ago in China, men climbed rickety bamboo poles about 1000ft from the ground to harvest just a handful of birds nest. To this day this exact same process is done to make a bowl of soup called yan wo. Chinese believe that the nest only made of the Cave Swifts Bird’s saliva contains medicinal properties. Depending on the bird’s diet, it’s saliva would create two kinds of nests: white or red.  2kg of white nest would cost $2,000 and the red nest can cost up to $10,000. A single serving of Bird’s Nest soup that contains 8oz of red nest would cost about $1,200. Good thing that the serving is enough to be divided among six people.

Unlike the Kopi Luwak coffee which is prized for its distinct flavor, the soup made of bird saliva is tasteless. It only gives the soup a thick texture (because of obvious reasons), in which other ingredients are added to give flavor.

Golden Tigerfish

In 2007, a large gold and red fish was caught off the shores of Zhanjiang province. This rare fish does not make much as a culinary delight, but it is prized for the belief that it brings good luck and wealth to the person eating it. Hopefully it would bring wealth because 1kg, a large portion offered to diners cost about $5,000. The whole fish is worth $75,000.

Almas Caviar

Almas or “diamond” caviar, is the most prized fish roe that comes only from beluga sturgeon. The albino Almas caviar are sold in 24K gold plated tins. They sell for about $9,700 for 250gm.

Sturgeons have existed and maintained its appearance for about 250 million years already and have outlived the dinosaur era. The fish caught are usually hundreds of years old. The older the fish the lighter shade of blue the roe is, and being the most valued.

This sought after delicacy made the beluga sturgeon almost reach the point extinction, causing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2005 to ban imports from the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. In 2006, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), suspended all trade of caviar-producing sturgeons. In the following years, the ban was partially lifted, but it still resulted in a huge amount of caviar trade, which brought critics to voice out that little is being done to protect the remaining sturgeons.

Cheers!