Edible Gold
10/15/24
Welcome to the Sides, my take on various food anomalies in the world and why they entice or bother me. If you’ve bothered to join the Food Conversations, then you may as well add some Sides to your order. Dip your chips in my sauce and see where I’m coming from. Now onto the focus of the sides of today. Edible Gold!
Now, I love gold. Austin Powers quote intended. I love gold so much I’d even eat it, let the ridiculousness of the practice be damned.
It's incredible how much this metal has altered the world around us.
But I want to talk about edible gold. For a good while, restaurants often offered edible gold as a way to cheekily charge insane amounts for their food. Couldn’t go a few days without seeing another article or social media post for worlds most expensive dish in the mid 2010s that was basically regular food with gold leaf on top. News flash people, gold leaf isn’t that expensive! That’s probably old news at this point, but here at the Sides we just dont give a damn.
I love gold. I’ll reiterate that. Even if it’s old hat I still enjoy seeing it on a meal. Check out my post on Kinya Ramen for a great example of affordable gold at a restaurant. Gold is pricey but leaf is really such a small quantity it’s negligible.
The edible gold craze reached new heights when even gold leaf pills were sold at one point in a ridiculous bit to make your shit glimmer. I’ve eaten gold before and I’ve never seen that sort of effect take place but then again I wouldn’t see the appeal in doing such a thing in the first place. Who’s showcasing their excrement for others to see? Certainly not the sort of company I’d like to keep!
Gold is a wonderful material, and it’s really a shame that it’s so expensive. And it just seems to get more so every day with the way the American economy continues to trend downward. That being said, sometimes even in the darkest days, a bit of luxury is what we need to make ourselves feel special and to enjoy the little things. In that regard, I can’t recommend edible gold enough, so long as you buy it yourself. It’s not nearly as expensive as you might expect and in small quantities, it can really make a dish pop. It works on ice cream, or soup, or even drinks!
Now, you may think I’m foolish for not outright trashing the concept as a whole, but it’s not as bad as one might expect. Just don’t spend your life savings on what amounts to a few flecks of gold. Enjoy yourself and try something new.