The everyday foods that could become luxuries
Ordering lobster in a restaurant or serving it at a party is considered the height of gastronomic sophistication. But that hasn't always been the case – lobster has worked its way up from humble beginnings to become a gourmet delicacy.
In the 18th Century, lobster was considered a highly undesirable food. The crustacean was so abundant along the east coast of the US that it was used as fertiliser and served in prisons. Kentucky politician John Rowan quipped: "Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty."
It was the development of railways in the US which transformed lobster into a luxury. Train operators decided to serve lobster to their wealthy passengers, who were unaware of the seafood's poor reputation. They quickly got a taste for lobster and brought it back to the cities, where it appeared on the menus of expensive restaurants. By the end of the 19th Century, lobster had cemented its status as a luxury food.
What determines which foods are luxury items? Scarcity and price both play an important role.
Like lobsters, oysters have long been associated with fine dining and special occasions, largely due to their high price. But they haven't always enjoyed this status. Oysters used to be eaten by the poorest in society in the 19th Century. "They were so plentiful and cheap they
were added to stews and pies to bulk them out," says food historian Polly Russell.
By the early 20th Century, oyster supplies in England started to dwindle due to overfishing and pollution from industrial waste. As they became more scarce, their status rose and they were seen as something special, says Russell.
We see the opposite with products such as sugar and salmon, which used to be difficult to come by and only available to the wealthy. These foods lost their "aura of luxury" over time as people started farming them and, as a result, they became less scarce, says Richard Wilk, emeritus professor of anthropology at Indiana University.
Many fruits and vegetables used to be much scarcer than they are
today. Certain fruits such as strawberries and raspberries used to only be available in the summer, but now we can buy them all year round. "That changes the perception of luxury," says Peter Alexander, a senior researcher in global agriculture and food security at the University of Edinburgh.
Our obsession with sourcing scarce, luxury foods comes at a high price for the planet. As a particular species of fish or seafood becomes more scarce, the price goes up. The increased value gives people an incentive to fish harder and catch the remaining ones, which can lead to an extinction spiral, says Wilk.
When and where we eat certain foods also determines how much we value them. "Eating context is really important for creating desire," says
Esther Papies, a professor of social psychology at the University of Glasgow, noting that luxury foods are often associated with special occasions, such as eating in restaurants or holidays.
Positive, warm memories of sharing a meal with others also increases how much people value certain foods, says Papies. During Covid-19 lockdowns, experiencing food with other people became a luxury in itself, notes Russell. "People were craving to cook together and eat in a social way," she says. "In a world where resources are short and food availability is precarious, the experience of eating food together could become a luxury."
While historically certain foods such as coffee, chocolate and spices were luxury items, today these foods are supermarket staples in many developed countries. However, rising temperatures and unreliable rainfall could turn this around again.
At the height of Mayan civilisation, cacao beans were a valued currency, used to pay workers and traded in exchange for goods in the marketplace. Spanish merchants brought cocoa to Europe, where it became a popular indulgence in royal courts.
Coffee was once a little- known delicacy used for religious rituals in Ethiopia, before Western traders took the aromatic drink back to their home countries in the 17th Century and served it in coffee houses, popular among shippers, brokers and artists. After the Dutch secured seedlings, coffee cultivation quickly expanded worldwide and became a popular, everyday drink.
Today, chocolate and coffee are, once again, at risk of becoming expensive and inaccessible.
"Chocolate and coffee could both become scarce, luxury foods again because of climate change," says Monika Zurek, a senior researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.
Vast swathes of land in Ghana and Ivory Coast could become unsuitable for cocoa production if global temperature rises reach 2C. Climate change could wipe out half of the land used to grow coffee worldwide by 2050, according to one study. Another study suggests that areas suitable for growing coffee in Latin America could decrease by 88% by 2050 due to rising temperatures.
For thousands of years, spices were the epitome of wealth and power. Demand for aromatic spices sparked the first global trade routes, established vast empires and came to define the world economy. Today spices are ubiquitous and often the cheapest items on supermarket shelves. But they could revert to being luxury items, says Zurek.
Spice crops are already bearing the brunt of climate change. High rainfall and humidity provide fertile breeding grounds for pests like aphids and diseases like powdery mildew. In Kashmir, India's largest saffron-growing region, dry conditions have ravaged harvests of the lush purple crop.
Vanilla production on Madagascar has been hit by extreme weather in recent years. A cyclone devastated 30% of the island’s crop in 2017, sending prices to a record high of $ 600 per kilo, making the spice more expensive than silver.
"The danger of everyday products becoming luxury items is disheartening," says Monique Raats, director of the Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Centre at the University of Surrey. "Many foods could become out of reach for a lot of people."