10 Apr 2008 ›  5:50pm

I don’t know about you guys but I have a very pedestrian palette. I am not ashamed to say that down market foods are generally my fave. I’m very dude friendly in this way, and can happily survive in a tour bus eating only fluorescent foodstuffs for up to seven days (at which point I waddle off the bus and pour a jar of multivitamins down my throat). Anyway, I can accept that many of the fancier food out there are legitimately delicious to others. But there are a few things that I honestly wonder if anyone really likes. Or, are they just trophy foods that one has to automatically add to ones menu-rotation once one’s salary creeps toward the mid six figures?

Things I accept that people actually like (but I hate):
1. Pate
2. Truffles
3. Escargot

>Things I sometimes think people are gagging down in an effort to appear
richer:
1. Caviar
2. Foie gras (yes I know this is just pate + torture)

Sure, some of you will insist that caviar is beyond yummy—but would you still be singing that song if Beluga were a buck fifty a pound? And another thing—it just so happens that I don’t automatically find meals tastier when they’ve been molded into a cone. Please explain: when did a cylindrical salad become more desirable than a salad shaped salad? Guess what? I don’t relish the mandatory hunt for structural toothpicks required to ensure my mouth not be skewered, prior to taking a tentative bite.