As a passive foodie, I was interested to hear about the “Golden pineapple added to Fitzwilliam Museum’s famous facade” recently. This was to mark 300 years since the pineapple was at its dizzy heights in terms of scarcity and desire all based upon perceived opulence. Rather than just popping down to your local mega-market in the car and grabbing a cheapie for a pound. Pineapples wouldn’t physically make the journey from the tropics to our European shores. They would rot. The only way of procuring one or some of one was to grow your own or have very influential friends. This would usually involve investing tons of money in glasshouses and employing the smartest horticulturalists in the land.
The Super-rich would travel to the tropics and wax over the different flavour potential of these fine fruits, as it was almost impossible to grow them back in Northern Europe….Can you see where I am going here?
This led me to think, with climate change (just slip that one in there) and how we value coffee and pay more for quality. What will the human relationship be with coffee in 100 or even 300 years time? Will, there still be people and if so will they look back on what we are doing with huge question marks? What will future generations think about (currency) money and paying people more for better-tasting ingredients?
Personally, I think we live in a time of accessibility and take the exotic and tropical as a given. This doesn’t mean that drinking Gesha should be an everyday luxury or that Swan and chips should go on the menu any time soon.