[Sca-cooks] was cheap, now expensive foods

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Nov 11, 2009, at 6:43 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> What other similar food items can you think of which were cheap, until they became trendy and then the price shot way up?
> 
> Skirt steak, once fajitas became popular

Same with flank steak. We ate it all the time when I was a kid because we had a large family and it was cheap.

> Chicken wings.  I wanted some small chunks of meat, with their own handles, which I could cook up as a finger food for the Nobles Luncheon I did recently. Chicken drumsticks and chicken thighs were the same price as either the chicken section of the chicken wings. At the same price I was tempted to use one of the first two, but those would have meant fewer, total pieces, so I went with the lower chicken wing portions.

I understand chicken feet have gone up greatly in price. The bird flu thing has greatly changed the dynamic of the entire poultry industry in the Far East, and China has been importing chicken feet in huge numbers from the US, creating a relative scarcity here.

> A long time ago, lobster was apparently considered a trash "fish".

Depends on the location. The laws about not serving it to convicts, or asylum inmates, or servants, or whatever, are all over the place and vary by locale as to what species are being discussed: it could be lobster, or salmon, or shad, probably oysters in some cases.

I do remember being quite shocked at seeing Atlantic pufferfish (we called them blowfish when we used to catch them bottom-fishing in the Great South Bay off Long Island; almost everybody else threw them back or even gratuitously killed them before throwing them back; we brought them home and ate them) being sold in expensive Manhattan fish markets for like $12/lb.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter