There is something I have been wondering since I was a kid. What is the most expensive food there is?
Do you mean a prepared item, like say a cake decorated with gold foil? Or something like truffles which are an expensive ingredient in a dish? If it’s the latter, then IIRC, truffles have been the winner for decades now. The current price for them according to this site is $60 an ounce. (Which ain’t bad, I’ve seen the price listed way higher in the past.)
Well, some caviar sells for hundreds of dollars an ounce. But really it’s hard to say since different foods can cost as much as someone is willing to pay and because prices vary according to region.
(The aristocratic Romans (during the Roman empire) would love eat things that were simply expensive and exotic, even though some – like parrot tongue – were pretty gross.)
Well, it’s not like you can have a nice big bowl of it, but Saffron is the most expensive spice, and possibly foodstuff in the world. The price quoted on the website works out to $255.09/ounce
Phouchg
Lovable Rogue
Saffron ranks up there. Cooking.com has 1-gram of saffron for $7.75, which works out to around $220 per ounce.
Lobster stuffed with tacos…
Kind of frivolous answer, but it just hit me. Years ago, NASA sent up some tomato seeds on a space mission, when the seeds returned to Earth, they were given to schools to plant. Originally, the idea was that the kids would get to eat the tomatoes which grew from the seeds, but someone thought that might be a bad idea so NASA told everyone not to eat the tomatoes that grew from those seeds. (I guess the lawyers had caught Attack of the Killer Tomatoes on the Late, Late Show and it gave them nightmares. 
) Now, assuming you could find one of those tomatoes, without out a doubt, it’d be the most expensive food ever produced. (Once you factored in the costs of getting the seeds into orbit and back again, plus the cost in tracking a surviving plant down so that you could harvest a tomato from it.)
For basic ingredient type foods, saffron is often touted as the most expensive. Here is one such claim:
$2600/lb is a bit steep. A bit of searching suggests that $70/oz is more in line. Fortunately, a little bit of the stuff goes a long way.
We aren’t going to get a consensus, obviously.
A bottle of Chateau Lafite, 1787 was sold at auction for 105000 pounds in 1985. I don’t know what size the bottle was, or what the exchange rate was in 1985, but that has to work out to at least $5000/oz, probably more. The cork dried out, and it became a very expensive bottle of vinegar - serves someone right.
Correction - the wine was a magnum, apparently, so that would be about 50 oz, and it was $170000 US. $3400/oz is still damned expensive. The sucker, er, connoisseur, was Malcolm Forbes.
Crow
I’m willing to sell you a freshly baked (still warm!) Banana Bread made from the finest Mushy Bananas and Other Ingredients for a mere 10 000$US/ounce! Really! I will do it! I am willing to part with this Magnificent Banana Bread! It doesn’t get any better than this, folks! It’s a steal!
…Anyone…?
Sorry.
In terms ofactual FOOD, as opposed to a drink or a spice, caviar is the most expensive food in the world; ANY caviar is hideously expensive, with beluga normally going for $6-$7 US per gram, but some brands go for thousands of dollars an ounce.
Justcaviar.com has russian beluga for ~$1.40 a gram. I think honeyed hummingbird tongues might be pricier, but there doesn’t appear to be an online source for them.
I was watching a World Wildlife Fund infomercial that basically spends an hour telling you bad things that people do to animals. Apparently, Tiger Penis is a delicacy some places and, however they serve it, the price is around 5K per portion.
Hola!
In New York somewhere there is a 50 dollar Hamburger with fries. This comes with “Homemade ketchup”. I read this on CNN.
Who would pay 50 dollars for a hamburger? (even though it supposed to be from an Argentinian cow that is given daily rub downs and a bubble bath) Anyone who will pay 50 bucks for a hamburger and fries is a very rich snob who bought this to show that yes, I am rich and better than you.
Homemade ketchup? What, from tomatoes from Venice italy crushed by the nimble feet of small footed Japanese women? Give me a fucking break! This shit is almost as bad as micro breweries.
SENOR
SENOR
“Larks’ tongues. Wrens’ livers. Chaffinch brains. Jaguars’ earlobes. Wolf nipple chips. Get 'em while they’re hot. They’re lovely. Dromedary pretzels, only half a denar. Tuscany fried bats…”
Parrot tongues were eaten to ward off stammering and stuttering.
I think you are referring to the $41 for the burgers at The Old Homestead. Made from Japanese Kobe beef. Kobe cows have daily beer, not bubble baths.
And massage.
Expensive wines, like the one Mr. forbes bought, are an investment. As far as I know people rarely drink wines that expensive.