Would you like truffles with that? The world’s most expensive food

March 2nd, 2012

Appliance News

Earlier this week we looked at the world’s most expensive kitchen, coming in at just under half a million dollars.

Now we’re asking the question: what kind of food would you cook in such a kitchen?

As a service to anyone who may have recently won the lottery, Appliances Online has put together this helpful guide that will make it easy to break the bank with a snack quicker than you can say “cocaine on toast”. Bon appétit!

1. White truffles

For the uninformed, truffles are a type of fungus – similar to a mushroom – except that they grow beneath the ground.

Highly prized by gourmet chefs for their distinctive flavour, white truffles grow wild with oak, hazel, and beech trees, and are mostly only found in certain areas of Italy. Specially trained dogs are used to sniff out the truffles one by one (they used to use pigs, but they kept eating them).

Attempts to cultivate truffles in other parts of the world have been largely unsuccessful; this is due to the fact that the European red soil and rainy summers are necessary to produce the rich, earthy flavour.

Thus the going price for white truffles is around US $2,200 per pound. Meaning that unless your name is Richard Branson or Bono, truffles are a sometimes food.

2. Bird’s nest soup

Considered to be a Chinese delicacy, a piping hot bowl of bird’s nest soup will set you back around US$100. As the name suggests, it is made from an actual bird’s nest – but not of the twigs and sticks variety – of course not, silly! Rather, they’re made from bird saliva (kind of like a thick, chewy web), which gives this soup its distinctive, jelly-like texture.

High in calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium, this soup is… hey! Where are you going? You’ve barely even touched your bird’s spit soup! Didn’t you know a brave Chinese guy had to climb up a tall ladder in the middle of a dark cave so you could eat dinner? Sheesh, what an ingrate.

3. Saffron

Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice – retailing for around US$500 – US$5,000 per pound (depending on the grade). The reason why it’s a tad on the pricey side is because it takes around 50,000 – 75,000 crocus flowers (roughly a football field’s worth) to make a pound of the stuff.

Coveted for its unique flavour, dishes cooked with saffron also take on that distinctive orangey yellow colour which looks particularly appealing in rice dishes such as risotto.

…Or you could save yourself the expense and just bung a few drops of yellow food colouring into instant rice to impress your guests – it might not taste the same, but hey, the price is right!

4. Pizza Royale 007

Award-winning Glasgow restaurateur Domenico Crolla created a 30.5cm pizza dubbed ‘Pizza Royale 007’ to auction off for charity.

Toppings included lobster marinated in cognac, caviar soaked in champagne, Scottish smoked salmon, venison medallions, prosciutto, and vintage balsamic vinegar, all topped with a generous amount of white truffle shavings and edible 24-carat gold flakes.

“If any pizza was made to suit 007, this is it,” said Mr Crolla.

Fetching US$4,200 at auction, this pizza is best served cold out of the fridge after a big night on the Dom Pérignon.

5. Koi Luwak

Valued at around US$160 per pound, Kopi luwak is a type of coffee that has passed through the digestive system of an Asian Palm Civet (a creature that looks like something between a cat and a monkey).

In other words, it’s coffee made from monkey poo.

The Asian Palm Civet eats the coffee berries for their fleshy pulp, while the proteolytic enzymes in their stomach seep into the coffee beans, a process which takes out a lot of bitterness out of the beans. The defecated beans are then collected, washed, dried, roasted and brewed to produce a smooth, aromatic coffee blend.

Sounds delicious, no? Well, put it this way. If I were faced with a choice between Nescafé and Koi luwak I’d choose… Koi luwak of course. I’m not crazy.