What is the definition of luxury foods?
Anything that you can’t really afford but you may treat yourself to occasionally. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries salmon was so abundant that it was regarded as a cheap working man’s food. When the spice routes to the east were first established, pepper was more valuable than gold. This applied to a number of spices and even the word salary is derived from the Latin for salt – soldiers were often paid in salt (hence the expression ‘worth his salt’). So what we tend to regard as luxury really does depend on availability, which includes affordability. If truffles were commonly available and affordable they would not be considered a luxury (and possibly not held in such high esteem). Of course there is an alternative view that luxury food is just anything that you really like. After I have cooked a really good meal, no matter how plain the ingredients, and I have got it just right – that’s luxury.
