Rags to riches: 5 humble foods that became luxury

Today, some ingredients appear on the menus of luxury establishments that in times gone by were foods of the people or even of the poorest and most marginalised social classes.

In Italy, this can be seen in many traditional recipes. Only a few years ago, minestrone was a common dish, prepared with ingredients from the vegetable garden and which could feed multiple families. Today, especially if you live in certain big cities, you might have to choose between paying rent and eating vegetable minestrone. This article is not a treatise on the anthropology of food but rather an exploration as to why certain iconic so-called luxury ingredients were born in the poorest kitchens and then experienced a second life.

How can this happen? It’s simple, when the availability of an everyday ingredient that people are accustomed to consuming becomes, for various reasons, limited, demand drives up the price. This has happened continually throughout history. So, what are the sought-after, luxury ingredients that were once humble? Here are some examples.

Caviar

Caviar has long been one of the most expensive foods on the planet. There is very little availability, small quantities are consumed, and those few grams reach sky-high figures. But caviar has not always been found in palaces, in fact, some 300 years ago it was not considered a high-value ingredient. The consumption of sturgeon in the US and elsewhere was very high and the fish’s small eggs were a waste product that was often served free of charge in inns to accompany a glass of wine. Some records even say that it was served in prisons. Industrialisation and its effects on the ecosystem drastically reduced the number of sturgeons in US waters, and when people realised that caviar was no longer available, its price skyrocketed without ever really coming back down.

Sushi

Even though today, sushi is associated with all-you-can-eat restaurants in every corner of the globe, it is very expensive in its pure form. There are restaurants, both in Japan and around the world, where you must spend prohibitive amounts of money for sushi of the highest quality. But this was not always the case. In ancient times, combining rice with raw fish was a simple technique for preserving fresh seafood. The starches contained in rice, just like sugar, were good for extending the shelf life of fish, which was available in abundance in an island nation like Japan. Sushi was therefore a meal for workers and families. However, globalisation came to bear on this food too. The West discovered sushi, demand grew, and the sea was not an inexhaustible resource, which meant the price of this once humble food trended ever-upward.

Kobe wagyu

Known as the most expensive beef in the world, its price can be as high as $1000 per kilo. The beef is the result of a crossing of different Japanese cow breeds. Its texture is marbled and it was precisely this marbling of fat in the beef that, at least in the early stages of importation, left the US market unconvinced of its quality. It was a clever marketing campaign that made wagyu meat desirable and again the supply/demand dynamic won out. Exports decreased dramatically due to strict regulation and this, around the 1990s, made the meat extremely valuable.

Oysters

You don’t have to go very far back to discover that oysters went through the same economic process as caviar. They were a cheap and popular street food in many maritime areas. However, pollution of the seas has led to a noticeable decrease in numbers, so their price has risen sharply. But there’s more. In the second half of the 20th century, child labour was banned, a factor that greatly affected the oyster industry.

Lobster

Lobsters were once known as 'sea roaches', not because of their appearance, but because of their high numbers off the US coast. Lobsters were plentiful and were known as the food of convicts and servants. They were so plentiful that American fishermen barely knew what to do with them. But all good things come to an end, unfortunately, and so did the plentiful lobsters, which today are on the menus of the most exclusive restaurants and are usually only eaten on special occasions.