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Obviously the title is mostly tongue in cheek, but the premise is sound.
Why is it that the most expensive and coveted foods such as espresso/coffee, alcohol, sushi, cigars, etc. are all acquired tastes?
Obviously there are nearly objectively delicious things that are expensive, like steak, but it seems like by and large the more expensive the category of food, the fewer people like it.
Well, with alcohol after 2-3 shots you're too smashed to care.
Sushi? Never tried it...Can't say either way.
Cigars? I quit smoking,,,no more for me...
coffee...High end is a misnomer, you can get jazzed off jolt cola more than most coffees.
I remember when the song "Down Under" came out and there a line which says "So he gave me a Vegemite sandwich"
A radio jock said that he tried it and it's an "Acquired" taste (Meaning it sucks big at first) but the Aussies love it..,.
I found caviar and truffles (the mushroom kind) to be disappointing.
Truffles are highly variable depending on species and ripeness. Many people collect truffles before they develop their flavor. They can be very disappointing. I have had a truffle pastry that was one of the most memorable dishes I have ever tasted. In the fall I eat a lot of chanterelles, and morels in the spring. For Thanksgiving we had turkey stuffing that was loaded with chanterelles, and it was delicious.
I sometimes use lumpfish caviar on green salad as a garnish. Generally caviar is too salty for my taste unless used with something else.
Coffee is only expensive if someone else makes it for you. I have a local roaster who does a great job on pure Arabica beans. It sells for about $7.50/lb., and that is a lot of cups of coffee.
I never got into smoking cigars, but I used to smoke a pipe. It tasted and smelled a lot better than cigars for a fraction of the cost. I preferred a mild Cavendish tobacco. The pipes themselves cost quite a bit, and you need more than one to rotate every day or they get bitter. You need a minimum of three, and many pipe smokers keep half a dozen or more.
Prime rib will make me open my wallet once or twice a year, but $50 for a roast is pretty steep.
Other delicacies are fresh Maine lobster, fresh Dungeness crab, fresh coho salmon and fresh ling cod. The thing that makes them expensive is the fresh part. Three days on a fishing boat doesn't do fish any favors, and freezing ruins it.
My one really expensive acquired taste is single malt Scotch whisky. Most of my collection ran about $60 to $80 a bottle. The key to a great liquor cabinet is to buy it, then not drink it. I have one bottle that I bought in 1993 that still has an inch and a half in the bottom.
I admit I had to learn how to drink whisky. It always irritates me when I go to a bar and order whisky neat, some bozo will want to do shots. I'm a two fisted drinker, one fist holds the shot glass and the other fist holds a glass of ice water. If I want to get drunker I sip the whisky more, when I have had enough I sip the ice water more. After the first couple, a drink will last me an hour. I don't want to do shots, no matter how many bad westerns people have seen on TV.
The only way I'd agree with this is in reference to very expensive restaurants that serve tiny portions artfully piled up with a swirl of sauce on the plate.
I admit I've never eaten at one, but I watch cooking shows. They always seem to put way too many flavors together that just don't seem to go. Chocolate-avocado chicken with pomegranate-mint sauce, basil-cherry pasta sauce with a cinnamon-salmon vinaigrette salad dressing. ;p
That kind of thing.
LOL! When I was a wee young lady, I started working in a big city. My boss was into the good restaurants. We had so much fun, on his dime thankfully. I don't think cooking shows represent what people really eat, even in nice restaurants. I will take a couple of examples from my recent past.
Stayed in Boston recently. This is a pretty upscaley place. There is nothing weird about a shallot and wine reduction with a steak. The braised board was KILLER.
There is a place local to where I live that is pretty damned pricey. We go almost never because of this. It is not that the food is ala foo foo. It is that they raise crazy good beef. The tartare melts in your mouth. Of course, you have to pay ala carte for sides, which cramps my pocket book a little.
Anyway the food tv audience is a different audience than people who actually eat food. That said, I have eaten, hell even done, some combinations that I would never have dreamed would marry so well.
They always seem to put way too many flavors together that just don't seem to go. Chocolate-avocado chicken with pomegranate-mint sauce, basil-cherry pasta sauce with a cinnamon-salmon vinaigrette salad dressing. ;p
That kind of thing.
A friend told me about a restaurant he's excited about visiting soon. It's the "hottest restaurant ticket in town," he told me. I looked at the menu online while we were talking, and not one of the things you list here, Murk, would seem out of place on it. All I could think of was "Why?"
I kind of put the menu down, saying, or at least thinking, something like "That's a lot of food on one plate" at least three times. And he responded by saying, "But it's the hottest restaurant in town." And I just kind of let it go. What can you say?
LOL I thought it was good as a kid but as an adult I was like "why did I eat this crap"?
Feel the same about McDonald's chicken nuggets. Also used to eat cream cheese like, an entire damn stick! Can't imagine doing that now. Maybe a few spoonfuls and that's it. Same with condensed milk.
Beluga caviar doesn't come from beluga whale, it comes from beluga sturgeon. Whales are mammals and don't produce roe like fish.
I thought that mammal eggs is what made it so rare.
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