Surely, we are quite familiar with some exotic foods or ingredients that we often see in a fine dining menu. You may know that these ingredients are expensive, but do you really know the reason why? Hence, to give you some insight, we listed down five exotic foods and the reason behind their high cost.
Truffle
 Truffle/ Foto: Istimewa |
You're probably familiar with this ingredient. It's a unique ingredient that is quite hard to pass up. Truffle is undoubtedly a sign of luxury and the reason behind such high cost is the scarcity of the produce. Truffles are seasonal and require a very specific climate to grow, hence they are quite frustrating to grow and hunting them can be labor-intensive since each truffle must be dug up by hand. Truffles also take many years to cultivate and have a short shelf life.
Uni
 Uni/ Foto: Istimewa |
Sea urchin-or uni in Japanese-is considered a delicacy and prized for its unique flavor, making this a highly-demanded dish, especially in Japan. Due to several reasons, uni is extremely costly. The first reason is because of its labor-intensive process; sea urchins have a wide variety, some of them are edible and some are not. Urchin is the only seafood that are still hand-harvested today. Preparing and cooking sea urchin is also not an easy task since each shellfish needs to be carefully and strongly broken in half and handled to take out all of the innards. On top of it, they don't have much meat inside so multiple harvest is needed for one human serving. Imagine how many urchins that need to be harvested to meet the growing demand?
Caviar
 Caviar/ Foto: Istimewa |
The term caviar can directly be translated to unfertilized salt eggs, and it is well known as the dish of the wealthy thanks to its price. Besides being a delicacy, caviar is highly nutritious as it provides a great amount of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B12, selenium, and other vitamins and minerals. Caviar comes from a fish called sturgeon. While there are at least 26 varieties of sturgeon, female sturgeon fish are specially kept for the purpose of producing caviar. The reason behind its costly price is because a female sturgeon takes around 10-15 years until she starts producing eggs.
Saffron
 Saffron/ Foto: Istimewa |
Saffron has been used as a perfume since ancient times in Greece. Other than that, the red/orange herb is commonly used as a cooking spice for some Eastern, Middle Eastern, and European dishes, as well as a clothing dye. Its flavor and distinct aroma has the power to elevate its surrounding flavors into something more special and ethereal. However, saffron is a very expensive spice-it's even more expensive than gold. Yes, you heard it right. The reason was due to its harvesting process; only a small amount of each saffron flower is used and all of the harvesting must be done by hand.
Artichoke
 Artichoke/ Foto: Istimewa |
Incorporating artichoke into a good dish might be easy, but preparing an artichoke requires a bit of work before it can be ready for consumption. This becomes one of the reasons for its priciness. Basically, artichoke takes at least five years of growth before it's harvest-ready, and only a handful of them can be harvested. Manual laborers must go through the fields while collecting artichokes and currently, there is no automated method for this process. Another reason is because of the commitment and resources farmers have to dedicate in order to grow artichokes. They also need a massive amount of land for several years to grow fully-sized artichokes.
There you have it, five expensive delicacies and the reason behind their darned expensive price. Did your favorite ingredient make it to the list?
(HAI/alm)