Hypothesis - rich people’s food tastes good when made from top quality ingredients by top quality chefs using top quality equipment. Of course, virtually any kind of food will taste better under these conditions - but for rich people’s food these are mandatory conditions for it to be palatable.
This improves its wealth signaling qualities. If you serve pizza to your guests of course it’d taste good - no surprise there. It’s pizza. But if you serve caviar and it tastes good - it means you have the means to procure high quality caviar.
According to this hypothesis, when the lower (or even middle) classes get the chance to try these foods, it’s usually the cheaper kind. Because who would waste good caviar on you? And because taste degrades so steeply with price, we think the type of food itself tastes bad - simply because we are not tasting the same grade the rich eat.
Poor people’s food, of course, is the exact opposite. It’s design to taste good even with cheaper ingredients, common equipment, and lower cooking skills (I’m not saying poor people are bad cooks - but you can’t compare one’s expertise with one chore among many to the top experts that money can buy)
Or… rich people only like expensive food because it is expensive, not because it tastes good.
They want to flaunt their wealth when having visitors, so they only buy the rarest of ingredients and demand a lot of work to put into it in order to call them delicacies.
If the ingredients really would be of high quality, they wouldn’t need a lot of preparation. The ingredients would speak for themselves.
who would waste good caviar on you? And because taste degrades so steeply with price
I’m not sure caviar is the best example here. A lot of people just don’t like fish eggs, which is fine. But tons of other people eat fish eggs that aren’t caviar, like salmon eggs, which are a common sushi ingredient and relatively cheap. Fish eggs definitely don’t need to be sturgeon caviar to taste good, even if most people don’t like them in general.
But unless you’re in Japan, you’re probably a somewhat rich westerner if you’re eating any kind of fish eggs regularly, so maybe rich people just tend to have more access to things that would expand their palates.
Hypothesis - rich people’s food tastes good when made from top quality ingredients by top quality chefs using top quality equipment. Of course, virtually any kind of food will taste better under these conditions - but for rich people’s food these are mandatory conditions for it to be palatable.
This improves its wealth signaling qualities. If you serve pizza to your guests of course it’d taste good - no surprise there. It’s pizza. But if you serve caviar and it tastes good - it means you have the means to procure high quality caviar.
According to this hypothesis, when the lower (or even middle) classes get the chance to try these foods, it’s usually the cheaper kind. Because who would waste good caviar on you? And because taste degrades so steeply with price, we think the type of food itself tastes bad - simply because we are not tasting the same grade the rich eat.
Poor people’s food, of course, is the exact opposite. It’s design to taste good even with cheaper ingredients, common equipment, and lower cooking skills (I’m not saying poor people are bad cooks - but you can’t compare one’s expertise with one chore among many to the top experts that money can buy)
Or… rich people only like expensive food because it is expensive, not because it tastes good.
They want to flaunt their wealth when having visitors, so they only buy the rarest of ingredients and demand a lot of work to put into it in order to call them delicacies.
If the ingredients really would be of high quality, they wouldn’t need a lot of preparation. The ingredients would speak for themselves.
Price is considered in their taste.
Expensive meals have the value mostly in more presentation for less amount.
I’m not sure caviar is the best example here. A lot of people just don’t like fish eggs, which is fine. But tons of other people eat fish eggs that aren’t caviar, like salmon eggs, which are a common sushi ingredient and relatively cheap. Fish eggs definitely don’t need to be sturgeon caviar to taste good, even if most people don’t like them in general.
But unless you’re in Japan, you’re probably a somewhat rich westerner if you’re eating any kind of fish eggs regularly, so maybe rich people just tend to have more access to things that would expand their palates.
My mom would.
Awww