5 Absurdly Expensive Pieces of Junk Food
We all dream of winning the lottery and turning our own lives into The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (only in our version, we own the house, damn it). But once you live in a rich neighborhood and replace your friends with an entourage, there are certain pleasures you'll surely miss. The homemade fireworks that were such a hit in the trailer park won't go down so well in your gated community, and none of the fancy dinner parties you attend will serve hot wings.
After all, sometimes you don't want hand-massaged braised duck kidneys. Sometimes you want the shit you used to get at the Quik-Stop and eat in your car on the way to Steve's house. Fortunately, there is an entire industry catering to rich people who still have minimum wage tastes. They make things like ...
#5. The $80 Hot Dog
You know what they say about hot dogs, don't you? That they're made of pig fetuses and bear manure? Yet how many times have you gone into a convenience store, stood in line behind a trucker as he picked out a link from the rotating slow cooker and suddenly desperately wanted one? Not even the nagging feeling that those rotating grease tubes doubled as overnight roach bait could stop you, because no matter what, hot dogs are delicious. Even if eating one makes you hate yourself a little.
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The little American flags obscure the fact that it's mostly anus.
Now, imagine how much harder that will be once you're a wealthy tycoon, with wealthy tycoon friends. You can't be caught eating that shit at your fancy operas or charity balls, even if it is the food of the gods. But who among your snooty friends could look down on you for eating the $69 gourmet hot dog at Serendipity 3 restaurant in New York. Look at it!
Liz Steger
What, no relish?
That bastard is "...grilled in white truffle oil and topped with duck foie gras, caramelized Vidalia onions, heirloom tomato ketchup and Dijon mustard."
The only problem is that, knowing how competitive rich douchebags can be, eventually one of your friends will boast that they have found a better, more expensive dog. They are speaking of the $80 "McMullen dog."
Brockton Rox
If hot dogs have a god, this is it.
First, half a pound of beef is rolled into a tube. Next, it's "... deep fried and rolled in truffle oil, then coated with porcini dust, sprinkled with white truffle shavings and topped with dollops of creme fraiche, caviar and fresh roe." Unfortunately, the only place to get it is at the stadium of the Brockton Rox baseball team. So you'll probably have to send your butler to go pick it up.
Totally worth it.
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"And there had better be relish, Jenkins. God help you if there isn't."
#4. The $110 Bowl of Ramen
Ramen is a bowl of noodles, broth, spices and destitution that you'll find in college dorms and poverty-stricken homes across the U.S. It sells for pennies for a dried package.
In Japan, it has a better reputation -- ramen is a street food, kind of like hot dogs or kebabs. The most you should expect to pay there is $10 off a vendor in Tokyo. The most you should expect to pay for ramen in the U.S. is a simple "thanks" for your buddy's roommate down the hall.
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"No problem. Maybe we could hang later? No? OK. Cool."
But no matter where you go, ramen is comfort food -- a rush of warm salt and fat that makes you wonder why people feel the need to spend actual money on food with ingredients they can identify. But once you've moved up in the world, like after your patent for the self-lighting bong goes through, you're not going to be allowed to sit down at the dinner table with your trophy wife and three kids and cram your face into a steaming bowl of ramen.
Unless you pay $110 for a super-fancy bowl of ramen. BEHOLD:
Fujimaki Gekijou
It could use a slice of Kraft cheese and a few diced up hot dogs.
You'll have to go to a particular Tokyo restaurant (Fujimaki Gekijo) to get it, and you'll need to make reservations well in advance. What do you get for your money? Well, it's ... basically the same stuff. But with more pretension, as Chef Shoichi Fujimaki has no problem telling you:
"Usually a product is 80 percent materials and 20 percent effort. But for me, it is the opposite. To be honest, my ingredients are basically the same as when I was selling ramen for 1,000 yen ($13)."
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"People are so stupid it sometimes makes my head hurt."
After making that statement, Fujimaki crowed like a rooster and slammed a football that came out of nowhere into the ground, just in case anyone was doubting his swagger. So, who is buying this ramen? People who have made their way to the top of the ramen chain, that's who.
Fujimaki's restaurant is so exclusive that you need reservations at least three days ahead of time to get the good stuff. And even then, you have to have eaten at his other, cheaper restaurants first or else he won't accept your reservation. And if you get in, you still have to follow his Soup Nazi-ish instructions on how to eat it.
Brett Bull Photos
"You have to eat it alone in a tiny, unfurnished bedroom, wearing nothing but underwear and crying silently."
And that is why you need to work hard to earn that extra money. So that your former simple pleasures can be made much harder.
#3. $5 Ice Cubes
So, your closet is full of tuxedos and your bar features bottles of $3,600 Glenmorangie scotch. You're drinking from a top-of-the-line glass, you're wearing your special whiskey-drinking gloves. But then you reach for the ice in your "real hollowed-out mummy head" ice bucket and realize that's just regular poor people ice, the stuff you can get from bags from a gas station.
Clearly it's time for Glace Luxury Ice, at five bucks per cube.
Glace Luxury Ice
If you're anything like us, that's more than the cost of your vodka.
Oh, and they're not cubes, they're spheres. These "perfectly spherical" (quotes theirs) chunks of ice are made from purified water and are precisely 2.5 inches in diameter, which any scientist will tell you is the exact diameter at which ice reaches maximum levels of fanciness.
Glace Luxury Ice
"I'm not addicted to alcohol. I'm addicted to class."
Serving these frozen spheres isn't as easy as just putting the ice into your drink; that would be too simple for such a luxurious product. First, you have to carefully remove the ice from the luxury pouch it comes in. Then, you have to wait three or four minutes for a "frost" to form on its surface before finally putting the ice in your guest's glass. It's up to you whether or not you add the roofies then or later.
So who are the people willing to pay $5 per cube of frozen Dasani? Here's one of their clients:
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"I use it to cool off my Metamucil."
You want to be like Hef, don't you?
How the hell is ice junk food?
ReplyI spent £15 on a Subway once....it was amazing.
ReplyWho the f**k cares about the whales, anyways? Why can't these people just accept the whole "different cultures" thing?
ReplyI live in New Jersey, so it's not possible for me to run down to the convenience store to buy booze.
ReplyNot that I ever would, If I'm paying 70 bucks for a hotdog, it better damn well be made of 100% real meat and animal fat rather than cow manure and pigs fetuses. But as for us normal folks, yea, even hotdog MANUFACTURERS say, and I quote, " Heck no I wouldn't eat them", so why on earth should I take the fact that the people who MAKE them see something(s) going inside them bad enough that they don't eat them, but yet go and eat them myself??
ReplyI think the author should check their facts about Sea Shepherd. The "acid" you refer to is actually rancid butter. The Japanese call it by its scientific name of butyric acid to garner sympathy from people who don't know what butyric acid is - just wiki it. The rancid butter gets in the deck of the ship and makes the whale meat, which is processed on deck, taste rotten. It isn't sulphuric acid or anything corrosive.
ReplyAs to them being "eco-terrorists", this is a ridiculous comparison, like calling the Sea Shepherd "pirates". A terrorist spreads terror through attacks on civilian populations, i.e. completely blameless and uninvolved individuals. A pirate attacks vessels, steals goods and money at gunpoint, takes passengers captive, ransoms them, probably does awful s**t to them, and/or kills them. You are conflating two different issues for a hyperbolic attack on a group about who you have failed to check your facts.
Pirates and terrorists are not people who help to prevent poaching in the Galapagos Islands - with the full cooperation and involvement of government, attempt to prevent illegal fishing of Atlantic Bluefin tuna, and interfere - if quixotically, in the whaling hunt in the Southern Ocean. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society engages in a range of beneficial and positive activities to promote environmental awareness and protection. The legality or otherwise of their actions is going to be determined in the next few years before the International Court of Justice. Deliberate misunderstandings to inflame people's emotions is not a necessary tactic in such important issues as the involvement of the individual in international law, and the success or otherwise of the nation state system is governing global ecosystems.
As to accusing them of taking precious ice from the Antarctic, you do realise there are seasonal melts of the ice shelf, and that it would be easily obtainable from any number of melting chunks of iceberg floating by? Sea ice isn't a fixed amount. It is diminishing, but I hardly think that taking a few litres from an area that is melting and then reforming over the winter season, is in any way comparable to what the human race as a whole is doing to cause the problem of global warming.
The guys who sell the ice probably laugh their asses off with each sale.
Replythe frozen haute chocolate looks to die for, but i dont know if i would pay that much for it.
ReplyFresh ramen noodles are no more junk than spaghetti or any other kind of pasta... but then again, all grain should be considered junk because that's what it is. You're no better eating a plate of pasta than eating a bowl of fresh ramen (which by the way you can prepare at home in 20 minutes with just eggs, flour, oil and a hand-cranked pasta press).
Reply3 out of 5 items listed aren't food, hehe.
ReplyThe hot chocolate actually looks kinda revolting.
ReplyI think all of these do. What the hell is all that s**t on the ramen? And overfattened duck liver on a hot dog, NO.
I love how that picture of Hef has a bottle of Pepsi sitting in front of him. Like you buy $5 a cube ice, but then drink Pepsi, from a plastic bottle? Like you couldn't at least drink something that came in a glass bottle?
ReplyExpensive junk is still junk.
ReplyIf they're that expensive, I don't think they count as "junk food"
ReplyTo bad the acid used by the guys in "whale wars" is butyric acid... It's a scientific way of saying it's a stink bomb.
ReplyThey're still dicks, just not homicidal dicks. Careless manslaughter is still game, though. They've almost gotten their own people killed numerous times on those crazy boats. It's like a bunch of hippies sat down and watched "Jackass" and thought it could stand to be a little more reckless.
Thank you for mentioning this fact. As to ianam1983's comment, the Sea Shepherd have a faultless safety record, they actively engage in safety at sea operations when other vessels are in trouble, and the worst you can accuse them of is being liable to a charge of violating the International Maritime Organisation regulations. No charges have ever been laid. If you've gone to their website you'll see that they're a lot more organised and involved in the big issues of the environment than most NGOs, that they are not 'a bunch of hippies' who 'sat down and watched "Jackass".' Their actions are not reckless, they are calculated and functional. If they were reckless their safety record, their involvement with legitimate governmental conservation programs, and their other activities, would hardly stand to account, would they?
"If you're uncomfortable with supporting eco-terrorism"
ReplyWhy would I be uncomfortable with that? Stopping the extinction of whales and dolphins is a good thing, mmmkay?
Bwahahaha, just for that comment I'm going to eat something endangered
Volcano rabbit maybe
Oh, I agree. But fighting for a good cause using bad methods is, guess what? Still a bad thing to do.
Besides, if anything they're hurting the whole conservation cause by increasing animosity between conservationists and whalers. The only way to stop whaling is through diplomacy and education, even if it takes longer and doesn't look as good on camera. Keep harassing whalers and they'll keep on killing just out of f*****g spite.
"The End of History" is inaccurate. With $765 beer, we're glimpsing the eventual collapse of civilization.
ReplyI think some of the Cracked readers have started reviewing the products linked to this article. From the $3,600 Scotch:
Reply"Exquisite, if you're some peasant millionaire Review by Chesterfield Shuttleworth IV Value
Quality
Likelyhood You'd Recomend to a Friend
I have the highest standards for my whisky as I do all other aspects of my life. When I heard this was the longest aged scotch in the world, I immediately ordered my purchaser to acquire a few bottles. Needless to say, when my butler Jeeves brought this to me in my study I was so disappointed I was forced to spit it into his face. This was no better then any of your run-of-the-mill $1,000 bottles of scotch. Perhaps if you're some uncivilized millionaire, this might satisfy. But if you have the refined palette of the ultra-rich, this swill isn't fit for throwing angrily into your marble fireplace. I ordered my butler to drain the remaining decanters into the gutter and throw the bottles at poor people. (Posted on 9/10/11)"
"And for an extra thousand a waiter will provide you with a golden shower while you eat."
ReplyNo,dude...just...no.
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around $25,000 worth of f*****g chocolate! you could buy a car for that kind of money
ReplyIn Detroit, you could buy a small neighborhood.
Hell,with that money you could hire enough prostitutes to run a brothel.