Caviar: Really Yummy Treat or Really Poor Financial Decision?
My lovely wife and I, along with our children, recently returned from a vacation to visit my wife’s sister and family in Florida. My brother-in-law is a manager at a very expensive and swanky hotel there (I can’t even afford the family rate). So, one night he brings home some caviar for us to try for fun.
Caviar comes in a really small bottle…
The caviar he brought home was the good stuff – free range caviar! (ok, so I don’t think it’s actually called "free-range" – I guess it’s actually from "wild sturgeon" not "farm-raised"). The bottle contained 0.70 oz of wild sturgeon roe with some salt thrown in for good measure. The cost to the chef was $220 (yes, dollars) so a guest would pay $400 or $500 for it. Recently, The Happy Rock published a post on the costs of a gallon of various items , this caviar has to blow the others away with its cost! (I know, caviar isn’t technically a liquid…work with me here)
Wow, I can’t imagine spending that much money on any food, much less something I smear on a couple crackers. I mean, if I was really splurging I would spend maybe $75 or so on a good steak.
But it tastes awesome, right?
Uh, sorta, if by "awesome" you mean "expensive." (how exactly does "expensive" taste?) Maybe I just don’t have a "sophisticated" enough palate to appreciate such an exquisite treat. Or maybe no one actually likes caviar; they just feel like they should say they like it because it costs a tremendous amount of money. For me, I really can’t think of a more wasteful thing on which to spend hundreds of dollars.
Oh, and the worst part – it pretty much tastes like you would think it tastes – like salty fish eggs. Of course, don’t take my word for it, I ate my caviar on a plain cracker and washed it down with a Miller Lite.
The takeway…
But I did learn something – that "expensive" tastes like salty, fishy mush. And you can’t put a price on that kind of knowledge!
So, I originally had the title to this post as "Caviar: Worst Financial Decision Ever?" and I had to change it because, although pound for pound caviar is really, really, really expensive, you’re only out a few hundred bucks if you buy a container of it. An irresponsible major purchase that costs thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars could end up being a much more disastrous decision.
So, I am really interested to hear your thoughts on some of the ridiculously overpriced things out there. Or, I guess, maybe someone will defend the practice of caviar consumption (that’s cool, but honestly, I can’t imagine anyone reading this blog would have enough money to regularly buy caviar and would choose to do that with their money) (actually, I can’t imagine anyone reading this blog period, but that’s a different discussion).
Editor’s Note: There, I did it – this was my first real post <ducks head to see what happens>
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Right on with your analysis of caviar. I was once in a group discussing different kinds of tea (I hear some are very expensive) and one of my friends admitted that he drinks regular old Lipton. He then said, “I like to cultivate cheap tastes.” I share his philosophy and often use his quote. I think most of those overpriced specialty foods are just status symbols that people use to show how much money they can throw away.
Ben,
That is a great quote – one of my new favorites!