As an old Chinese saying goes, “Food is the most important thing for people”. In fact, since ancient times, human beings have been in pursuit of delicious food. As a result, many valuable food materials were created. These foods are valuable not only for their taste and nutrition, but also for their rarity and the harsh conditions in which they are produced. So, what kind of food materials in the world can be called top food materials. Let’s take a look.
10. Iberian ham
Iberian ham, which is made from Spanish Iberian black pigs, is very expensive and has very few offspring that take a long time to mature. Its flesh is tight and its muscle fat is delicious, juicy and unique. When made into ham, it is very sweet, with floral, earthy and nutty flavours, like high-quality Parmesan cheese, and the fat is soft enough to melt in your mouth. For many ham lovers, this is the best food and the price is never low.
9. Beer buds
Beer buds (or hoppy asparagus) are the latest vegetable fad in a list of the world’s top 10 food ingredients. It’s a byproduct of the brewing industry – beer buds are the green tips of hop plants that don’t go on to produce flowers for brewing beer. This is the most expensive vegetable because harvesting the tiny tendrils is a difficult task and every single bud must be visible throughout the plant and picked lightly by hand. In Belgium and the Netherlands, beer buds cost $128 a pound.
8. Moose cheese
There are many expensive cheeses to choose from, but moose cheese must be one of the most unique. It’s healthy, delicious and expensive. Bjorholm’s 59-acre farm in Sweden is a baby elk farm with only three elk, milked only between May and September. Elk milk is 12% fat and 12% protein. It should be refrigerated and set. Moose can produce enough milk to hold 660 pounds of cheese each season. Moose cheese comes in three types and can be tasted at the farm’s restaurant. Cheese is about $400 or $500 a pound.
7. Alma Caviar
Caviar has long been synonymous with luxury, but in recent years the emergence of Alma caviar has made it even more expensive because it comes from endangered beluga whales and now lives mostly in uncontaminated areas near Iran. Fish eggs that have survived for more than 100 years are very rare, but elegant, smooth, aromatic, delicious, spongy, and therefore complex and expensive. The most expensive is Exclusive Almaty, which means “diamond” in Russian. Almas caviar, sold in gold-plated gift boxes, retails for about $25,000 and weighs 2.2 pounds.
6. King Melon
Xichang King Melon is a hybrid of two cantaloupe varieties. It is grown in a greenhouse in the Nishichang region of Hokkaido, Japan, and is highly praised for its sweet taste. These melons are traditionally given to people as gifts, usually in pairs. The best West Zhangwang melon is round, smooth and sweet. A pair of one of the most unique melons sold at auction for $27,000.
5. Modena Traditional Vinegar
True traditional balsamic vinegar takes at least 12 years to produce and is protected by the European Origin Marking (PDO) system. Each year, the Babieri family harvests grapes from their vineyard, cooks unfermented grape juice over an open flame, carefully strains the concentrated vinegar and transfers it from one bucket to another. These casks are stored in the vinegar room. Vinegar has been getting more complex for at least 25 years and is the longest-lasting ingredient in the world’s top 10 food lists. 100 milliliters of this special vinegar (about 3.4 fl oz) can sell for $180.
4. Beef and beef
Ox fish is a very valuable meat. The flesh is soft and has a soft, buttery taste. The fat is marbled and very rich in flavour. It is said that the best cattle come from Kobe. Only about 3,000 cattle are certified by Kobe each year, and even fewer are exported. Kobe beef is one of the most unique foods in the world and sells for about $300 a pound.
3. Italian White truffles
White truffles are expensive because they are very rare. It can only be used in a small part of Italy (the Piedmont region) for a few months of the year. They must be fed by specially trained truffle piglets (or, in some cases, truffle dogs). Truffle production fluctuates depending on growing conditions throughout the year. It’s said to cost $2,000 a pound.
2. Konanigari Water, Hawaii
This is the most expensive water in the world, taken 2,000 feet from the bottom of Hawaii. Because the water is drawn from such a deep place, it is said that it is not polluted and it is said that it can help with weight loss and improve skin condition. Fresh water is a mineral concentrate from sea water and should be mixed with ordinary water before drinking. It is very popular in Japan, priced at $402 per 750ml (about 25 fl oz).
1. Saffron
Saffron is a little more expensive per pound than gold. The reason for the high price is that the harvesting process is laborious. Saffron is the dried stamen of the saffron plant: only three stamens are produced per plant, and each plant must be hand-picked and air-dried. One pound of dried saffron takes about a football field of flowers, and picking all those flowers takes about 40 hours of labor. However, saffron is usually sold in small portions and requires only a small amount of spice to play a very important role in flavoring dishes. The top-of-the-line Saffron is a Spanish sports car that retails for about $20 per two grams.
