The world's most luxurious foods

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Every person will have his/her choice of what is "luxury" food and it need not necessarily be in the expensive range, but I suppose if the category of food falls into that range, then the vendor would likely raise its price. Below is a list of what the author classifies as "luxurious" foods. Some of you may be familiar with at least one of them I guess. FYI, I don't fancy anyone in the list.

Cheers!


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/dr...ous-foods.html

The world's most luxurious foods

Mimi Sheraton lists the ultimate foods from across the globe from foie gras to black truffle, Beluga caviar to Tahitian vanilla

BY MIMI SHERATON
In an extract from her book, 1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die, the restaurant critic and award-winning food writer Mimi Sheraton lists a dozen of the ultimate luxury foods:

Aceto Balsamico: The king of vinegar
Its flavour should hint of Madeira wine with a brassy candied sweetness, a winey acidity, and undertones of oak. To be sure that you’re getting the real McCoy, look for regional authentication via a Denominazione di Origine Controllata (D.O.C.) label indicating that the vinegar has been produced and aged a minimum of 12 years (with the best and most expensive going to 25) in and around the areas of Modena and Reggio, according to Italian law. The hotspot for balsamic lovers is the Osteria di Rubbiara in Nonantola, just outside of Modena, a sprawling wine tavern where a single meal is served each night, all dishes having been prepared with balsamico. Costing as much as $150 (£100) for a tiny bottle – which is why it is portioned out as carefully as caviar. Where: In Nonantola, Italy, Osteria di Rubbiara, tel 39/59-549019. Closer to home Lina Stores in Soho

Foie Gras: the sublime decadence of liver
Dedicated connoisseurs avoid the mixtures dubbed paté, opting for slices of whole, unadulterated livers that have been slowly melted in their own juices with only a dash of salt. As flavourful as warm foie gras can be, only its chilled state can offer the full foie gras experience: the slow-melting, ice-creamlike texture and the rich aroma that is released as the fat gentles onto the palate. Try serving a chilled slice with figs on toast. The delicacy requires only a slice of toast or, better yet, a slab of baguette toasted over a wood fire. The latter is the way L’Ami Louis, in Paris, serves the best foie gras in the world. Where: In Paris, L’Ami Louis, tel 33/1-48-87- 77-48. Closer to home try Club Gascon.

Ovoli Mushroom and White Truffle Salad: a luxurious autumn salad
Food lovers visiting the northern provinces of Lombardy and Piedmont in autumn still have a sublime salad to discover – the enjoyment of which is likely to dispel any resentment over what will surely be an exorbitant price. Prepared to order at the table, the salad bewitches by way of its luxurious simplicity. It boasts only two main ingredients: white truffles, the aromatic treasures with a rabid fan base, and the lesser known but no less ecstatically delicious ovoli (pronounced OH-voe-lee), an orange mushroom that is egg shaped (hence its name). Almost always served in thin raw shavings, the ovoli reaches its gastronomic apotheosis in this gold-and-ivory-coloured Italian insalata. The moist, faintly earthy flavour of the ovoli, as well as its tender, gentle texture, make it a perfect foil for the heady richness of the shaved white truffle. Recipe: rossa-di-sera.com

Tartufi de Alba: the underground sensation
Truffles are easily among the most subtly flavoured, elusive, expensive, and mysterious foods of the world, not least because they grow entirely underground. Although there are some 70 species, two are most prized by connoisseurs: the black truffle (Tuber melanosporum), found in various parts of France, especially in Périgord and Provence, and in Italy’s Umbria region and the white truffle (Tuber magnatum), a pale yellowish-beige mushroom found at its best in northwest Italy’s Piedmont region, near Alba. White truffles are diabolically alluring, with a powerful fragrance that verges on the obscene, much in the way of a ripe and almost embarrassingly odoriferous cheese. But their aroma is merely a teaser for a profound and complex flavour so precious it is not to be tampered with. A highly specialised treasure with a short season that runs from September to December, white truffles will grow only beneath certain trees (usually oaks), but not with any consistency: Special event: White Truffle Festival, Alba, Italy

Angulas (glass eels, elvers): fooling the eye but not the palate
Served in small, individual, round earthenware or iron cocottes, seething in a bath of hot olive oil fragrant with lightly browned garlic and spicy red pepper flakes, they suggest a thread-slim Italian pasta such as capelli d’angelo (angel’s hair) in the classic aglioolio sauce. But look closer and you will note the tiny pinpoints of gray-black eyes staring up at you (accusingly?). And when you twirl a few of those tempting specimens onto a special miniature, two-pronged fork made of wood, you find they are no more than four inches long, with a tenderly meaty texture and a subtle deep sea flavour akin to that of delicate shellfish. The eels are netted during a short season that runs from early November to mid-February. The most enthusiastic elver lovers of all are found in Spain. The price of this delicacy can reach £133 a pound, which puts these infant swimmers among the world’s most luxurious foods. Where: In Madrid, La Trainera

Wasabi: the cleanest heat
Known for a strong, head-clearing heat that quickly fades into sweetness and leaves almost no aftertaste, wasabi’s flavor is most often compared to that of horseradish and mustard. As vibrantly green as its imitators, fresh wasabi is made from the root of mountain hollyhock, or Eutrema wasabi, a perennial herb that grows wild along the banks of cold mountain streams in Japan. Its cultivation is tricky, Wasabi requires an almost entirely consistent water temperature and takes years to mature, which explains why the fresh roots are difficult to find outside of Japan. Word to the wise: When first grated, the flavour of the fresh wasabi root is at its most powerful. Continued exposure to air weakens its heat. Where: In New York, Masa; In London, The Araki.

Tahitian Vanilla: the flavour of innocence
With a delicate, flowery flavour, Tahitian vanilla reminds us that the vanilla bean comes from a member of the orchid family, in this case Vanilla tahitensis. It is one of the most prized iterations of this innocently sweet seasoning. Prized by cooks and bakers all over the world, on home ground Tahitian vanilla is worked into beverages, puddings, fruit salads, and desserts, as well as the base flavour for a rich coconut cream sauce that graces shellfish and chicken dishes. Vanilla is also used as a scent and is believed to calm nerves and impart a sense of ease. Where: In New York, for Tahitian vanilla ice cream, Le Bernardin.

Saffron: the most expensive spice
One of the world’s costliest food products and certainly its most expensive spice, saffron is the 24-carat gold of the culinary world. Warmly sunny, mildly medicinal, and profoundly complex, it is valued for the memorably rich and earthy flavour and golden hue that it imparts to a multitude of beloved foods. Saffron actually begins with the colour purple, in the mauve narrow blossoms of the crocus bulb Crocus sativus L. Within those blossoms lie wispy inner stamens that divide into fragile slim threads. These are saffron, the golden threads that must be painstakingly extricated by hand, and only in early morning, during a brief harvest that runs from mid-October to mid-November. Quite a daunting task, considering it takes some 75,000 blossoms to realise a single pound of saffron threads. The best saffron comes in threads and is generally grown in La Mancha in Spain, and in even more limited amounts in India and the Abruzzi region of Italy.

Caspian “000” Beluga Caviar: the most expensive eggs
Tiny, glistening, black-diamond beads that lie silky soft on the tongue, exuding a mysterious essence of deep, dark salt sea with a vague patina of fishiness and the merest hint of earthiness. To aficionados, it is unquestionably the single best food in the world. But even if one is willing to pay top price, the best caviar has become increasingly difficult to find. The most highly prized is beluga, the roe of giant beluga sturgeon. These are the largest, roundest, and most succulent eggs, and they are graded for colour, the top choice being the crystal-grey eggs in the two-kilo tins with the triple-zero symbol. Top-grade products are not packed in vacuum jars or even in jars with near vacuum-tight lids. The best caviar comes in unsealed but covered tins. Serving the most sublime caviar with anything other than blini or unbuttered, wafer-thin, freshly made toasts and a squeeze of lemon juice would be profligate. Where: in Paris and London, Caviar Kaspia at multiple locations

Da Zha Xie (Shanghai hairy crab): a most coveted crustacean
Its firm but satiny flesh (joined in female crabs by an especially delectable bright-orange roe) is so delicate that in China the crab is simply steamed whole, and is never seasoned during the cooking process. Only as it is being eaten is it dipped, bite by bite, into a ginger-scented blend of rice vinegar and soy sauce. The most sought-after specimens come from Yangcheng Lake, just west of Shanghai. In Chinese medicine, hairy crab is believed to have an intensely “cooling” (yin) effect on the body, so it must be paired with ample “warming” foods like ginger and cups of potent, amber-hued rice wine. It is generally served with little else, although the meat might appear atop custards at luxe banquets. Where: In Shanghai, Old Shanghai Moon Restaurant; in Hong Kong, Wu Kong Shanghai Restaurant

Abalone: a sucker that takes a pounding
A tough mollusc of the Haliotis family and really a giant sea snail, it clings to rocks with a long abductor muscle that’s known as a foot and is its edible part. The foot must be pried off the rocks with a special metal tool wielded by deep-sea divers. Once out, the flesh must be pounded to edibility. The result is a texture and flavour that suggests a combination of calamari and conch. Even the mollusc’s shells, once emptied, are prized. Their shimmering nacreous lining is the basis of mother-of-pearl. If you have any doubts that the snowy, saline, gently chewy meat of the abalone is altogether delicious, consider the hardships gone through to harvest and prepare it and the sky-high prices it commands.
The Japanese favourite is raw abalone as sashimi. The Chinese like dried abalone braised or stir-fried. In France’s Brittany, pounded slices are sautéed in butter, then topped with a sauce of muscadet, garlic, parsley, and pepper, and baked in a hot oven to emerge as ormeaux au beurre Breton. In Spain, where abalone is called oreja de mar (ear of the sea), it is served raw or lightly fried for tapas sometimes topped with an egg. No matter where you eat it, it’s a delicacy – among the world’s greatest, costliest comestibles. Where: At various cities, Hakkasan

Tasmanian Leatherwood Honey: the devil in the honeypot
The colour of molten gold, this headily perfumed and elegant honey is derived from the nectar of the starry white blossoms of 350-year-old leatherwood trees. Canny bees gather the nectar in the humid rainforests of Tasmania, the only place on earth where the Eucryphia lucida tree grows. The unblended honey that results has a unique, smoked candy flavor with a hint of spicy bitterness and a slightly overripe aroma like that of some aged cheeses. It may take a little getting used to, but any acclimation period will be well worth the effort. Sampled by the spoonful, drizzled onto yogurt or vanilla ice cream, stirred into tea, or spread over hot buttered English scones, leatherwood honey is all sweetness and engaging complexity.


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