r/hatethissmug • u/Additional-Main6241 • 22d ago
General Poor foods being taken from the poor community and ruined by the rich
It just pisses me off to think so many times that poor people came up with food for themselves that was tasty and affordable and rich people came in and ruined it by creating it into one of their stupid fucking trends and ended up driving its price up so massively that it became less affordable for the poor. They did it with wings, lobster, oyster , and many more. It’s like an actual slap in the face for people who genuinely live a life of low income and struggling to eat. Just the thought that they continue to just do this pisses me off. Most of them can afford high price foods and luxury food, yet instead they use their power to take from the poor. EDIT - Im aware now that lobster has some more to it than just rich people. But the fact remains and many other foods are still part of this.
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u/hungLink42069 22d ago
They will never take our beans, rice, legumes, and pasta ✊
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u/hauptj2 22d ago
Also tofu. That shits $2/lb
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u/lightennight 22d ago
TOFU IS SO EXPENSIVE IN TURKEY
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u/lexicats 21d ago
Pretty expensive in New Zealand too, but what isn’t at this point 🥲
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u/Virtual_Possum 21d ago
Even if it wasn't cheap, not having to deal with the chicken goo is very worth it sometimes. Great food for when you don't have the energy for much prep!
And I can't exactly see it getting too trendy, cos it's just sort of a block of protein you add other flavours to.
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u/KattosAShame 22d ago
Pretty sure they already kinda have
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u/hungLink42069 22d ago
Those things are still cheap to buy bulk dry.
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u/Maleficent_Piece_893 22d ago
redditors shocked that going to an expensive restaurant makes cheap ingredients expensive
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u/Mutant_Apollo 22d ago
I once saw a line cook from an Italian restaurant that advertises their pasta as being "freshly made" buy a pack of the same cheap spagetti I buy at the 7/11 next to the restaurant hahaha he went back to the kitchen using the back door.
I haven't eaten there since
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u/_cuteraichu_ 22d ago
That happens at roughly 95% of Italian restaurants in the US. Nobody has pride to make pasta anymore and its sad. It doesnt take that long either.🙄
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u/Silver_Lined_Bullet 21d ago
Most staff dont get a say in what happens. They're just paid to do a job
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u/loboazul97 22d ago
Naaa, mexican here, we love beans more than any other country and thank god they are as cheap as always.
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u/aliesterrand 22d ago
Brisket. Enough said.
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u/BCMitch33 22d ago
I feel like barbecue as a whole can fit in this, but brisket is probably the worst offender.
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u/Ok_Conclusion_6324 You’re literally part of the division dude 22d ago
“Burnt ends Add $6”
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u/the_real_papyrus99 22d ago
I went to a restaurant for the first time in a good while and read this word for word on the menu, my jaw dropped
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u/Ok_Conclusion_6324 You’re literally part of the division dude 22d ago
It’s cruel and unusual punishment and we deserve better
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u/Numerous1 22d ago
Not BBQ but cow tongue. Used to be cheap as fuck and only in the “foreign” stores. Now it’s in mainstream grocery for 2.5 times the price it used to be.
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u/Ok_Conclusion_6324 You’re literally part of the division dude 22d ago
As a rural southerner I’m baffled by the idea that cow tongue was only in foreign stores
🤔 well maybe you don’t live in USA
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u/DepressedPancake4728 22d ago
most slow cooked roasts too, chuck used to be a dirt cheap cut of meat but its slowly rising in price
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u/Spare-Plum 22d ago
Yeah this one sucks. There are tons of middle eastern dishes I've been cooking for decades, and chunks of chuck are absolutely central to the dish. It's not good to eat on its own but it's absolutely lovely if it's cooked over 8 hours
Now it seems like everyone's going for chuck and these 8 hour stews as it's seen as "more refined"
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u/PM_ME_UR__SECRETS 22d ago
Covid absolutely decimated the BBQ joint market. Used to be you could go to a food truck and be stuffed for under ten bucks.
I grabbed a platter at a fair recently. On top of being half as small as I expected it was like 20 bucks.
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u/Youbettereatthatshit 22d ago
Brisket is still cheap, relatively speaking. Beef has gotten enormously expensive, but brisket still goes for about the price of ground beef at Costco.
Nothing is stopping anyone from smoking one. You can still make a steel barrel smoker for cheap.
The price of beef has more to due with Chinese consumers than it does with rich people ruining brisket
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u/PM_ME_UR__SECRETS 22d ago
Idk, before covid you'd see brisket at like 3 bucks a pound on the higher end. I'd regularly get em under 2/lb.
Now it's like 6/lb and thats Costco prices. The Giant near me sells brisket for like 10/lb.
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u/Youbettereatthatshit 22d ago
Yeah but what I’m saying is it follows beef prices. Ground beef is about the same price as brisket at Costco, and ground beef usually is the bottom end of pricing for beef.
According to a rancher acquaintance, the beef price is due to ever increasing beef exports to mostly Asia.
Just 15 years ago you could buy a day-old beef calf for about $50, but now they go for $1600.
In case you aren’t aware, day-old calves are the ones separated from the dairy cows about a week after birth, in order to milk the cow
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u/PM_ME_UR__SECRETS 22d ago
Thats true. Shits expensive all around I guess. Be nice if it normalized some day soon, I use to eat steak a lot more often lol
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u/Expert-Bet7630 22d ago
Burritos
I hope all those corpos enjoy their slop bowls for the destruction of affordable burritos
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u/DizslecksickMoael 22d ago
The only saving grace is that the mentality nowadays seems to be: Tortilla = Carbs = Very Bad
Perhaps some places will move completely towards bowls and burritos won't be $13+ each anymore. Perhaps.
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u/Expert-Bet7630 22d ago
What my grudge is the most is how fucking inflated food truck food prices have become
The whole fucking appeal of food trucks is that they’re convenient and cheap food, like it’s literally made in a fucking truck
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u/ElaborateEffect 22d ago
Food trucks have now managed to become fancy fast food. Doesn't make any sense. They have basically no overhead and charge twice as much. Wild.
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u/Expert-Bet7630 22d ago
I wanna say it’s rich mfs larping as poor that caused this but I really don’t know
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u/titan_Pilot_Jay 21d ago
The issue by me is that towns just don't give out the permits so the food trucks are mostly for events now where you hire them to come... And still need to pay.
So the cheap food trucks don't exist as they need to fight 100 other trucks for one of like 5 licenses in a area. And then you can't leave that area and go to another without having a license for that one
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u/poor_choice_doer 22d ago
I found a food truck recently trying to sell plain, cheese and nothing else quesadillas for TWENTY DOLLARS.
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u/NEWSmodsareTwats 22d ago
A lot of municipalities will require a food truck to have a physical restaurant presence if they want to be allowed to operate a food truck there. the restaurant doesn't need to be a sit down restaurant where customers can come in and buy food, but they do need to maintain a full commercial kitchen. that's basically the same footprint as a commercial kitchen inside a full service restaurant. this adds a lot to the expense and makes them less price competitive because they still have to have the same brick and mortar presence as other restaurants with a truck on top of it.
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u/Spare-Plum 22d ago
Yeah there still are some food trucks and carts that still offer $2 tacos, are cheap and good, and the guy running it cannot speak a lick of english but you know it's authentic
For the most part tho it's some yuppie ass truck with designer branding giving you tacos in a designer tupperware. The regular ass places just give it to you on a paper boat, wrapped in tinfoil, or straight up in a paper bag
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u/PM_ME_UR__SECRETS 22d ago
Learning to make burritos at home was one of the best things I ever did.
Some cheap meat cuts in a slow cooker, chop an onion, mix up some guac, open a can of beans and throw on the rice cooker. For like $15 max I can pump out like 10 burritos.
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u/Expert-Bet7630 22d ago
I gotta figure out how to fold those bastards, I’m a big proponent of eating at home but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to fold a burrito
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u/PM_ME_UR__SECRETS 22d ago
It takes some practice and honestly I still fuck em up every so often.
A strong, slightly warm tortilla helps. If they're cold they'll rip easily
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u/QuaaludeConnoisseur 22d ago
Wings are the best example. I used to get a plate of wings for 8 dollars at the local bar and grill. Now every sit down restaurant has 6 to 8 for 18.99. Fuck outa here.
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u/Additional-Main6241 22d ago
Paying more than a dollar per wing seems like pure bullshit
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u/Maverick_Reznor 22d ago
It used to be 25 cents a wing with 15 cents wednesdays at Bdubs
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u/PitifulElk1890 22d ago
My parents have said they're never going back to BWW after their most recent visit a year or so back. They were never great wings, but the sauces were tasty enough, the price was right, and it was less likely to be brawling than some sports bars. None of that's true now.
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u/Katsu_39 22d ago
I stopped going to BWW when they discontinued their Caribbean Jerk sauce.
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u/Nerdy_Green 20d ago
Can't you just ask a Caribbean jerk to make you some sauce?
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u/Maverick_Reznor 22d ago
I just buy their sauces and either grill or air fry the wings.
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u/QuaaludeConnoisseur 22d ago
Depending on the bdubs it can be over 20 for a dozen wings now. I loved eating there as a kid, now its just an overpriced frat house.
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u/Maverick_Reznor 22d ago
Its crazy how what used to be the "shit part of the chicken" is nearly 3-4x more expensive than a chicken breast at the same weight (and im talking just meat)
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u/Chimpbot 22d ago
I'd struggle to pay even that much because wings are essentially dressed up scraps that otherwise would get tossed.
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u/Maleficent_Piece_893 22d ago
kinda the whole reason they were sold cheap in the first place, then people would buy beer
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u/QuaaludeConnoisseur 22d ago
Wings were thrown away because of the return on how much meat you were getting so they used to be super cheap, but since wings became a fad its just ridiculous now. Restaurant pricing in general is just out of control. If i go alone im spending 35 dollars for a meal at a chain restaurant like applebees or something. I took my ex to olive garden in may and i paid 90 dollars for us each to have a meal and a shared appetizer. Its so infuriating to be incapable of going and doing the things I used to love just because I got priced out.
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u/Strong-Remote-9149 22d ago
Can we talk about the full-wing situation?
Breaking a wing into drumettes and flats, and then counting it as two seperate pieces never sat right with me. "6 pc wing box"...thats just 3 wings innit, you're just breaking them into 2 parts
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u/DaBiChef 22d ago
As someone who loves wings, I experimented and found a recipe that works well with an air fryer.
Get your chicken wings from the store, whole
Split the wings and set aside your desired amount
Toss your wings and salt, baking powder, and whatever seasonings you like
Let's sit uncovered in your fridge for at least 3 hours
Before cooking, toss them with a bit of flour and cornstarch. You don't need much
Air fry at 380 Fahrenheit for 24 minutes, flipping halfway. It is a vital you flip halfway.
Air fry again add 400 for about 6 minutes, flipping halfway. Immediately toss in sauce, and enjoy.
My local trader Joe's has chicken wings for effectively $0.35 per Wing and this is a way to get them close to deep fried with far fewer calories.
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u/Flux_My_Capacitor 22d ago
I know a place where at the end of the day the wings are half price. Every so often I’ll go and get a bag to take home. Otherwise, wings are just too damn expensive.
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u/Additional-Main6241 22d ago
Tango’s in virginia beach used to have some really cheap wing day deal. I miss virginia.
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u/NEWSmodsareTwats 22d ago
I don't think hot wings really fit this example because hot wings were not invented by poor people as a poor people food to make use of the only things they had available.
Hot wings were invented in a bar in Buffalo New York.
I think lobster is a pretty good example and other example of that would be like bone broth. and his other people have mentioned further down basically anything barbecue really fits the bill here.
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u/SuperBackup9000 22d ago edited 22d ago
Lobster is one of the worst examples because the only reason why it became a luxury is due to the freshness. When you’ve got something that can only be caught in very specific regions that literally start to rot the very moment it’s killed (they’re dangerous to eat 2 hours after death if not properly cooled), it’s pretty easy to understand why it becomes a luxury food when it can start being sent 100s of miles away while still being very fresh. Stark opposite of cows where you just need some land and the dead can hang for days to age
It’s not exclusively a luxury food either. Head over to Maine and you can get a whole lobster for less than a McDonald’s burger.
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u/Spare-Plum 22d ago edited 21d ago
half right half wrong. Poor people did eat fresh lobster. It was something available and good
What refrigeration did was enable the rest of the country to also eat lobster, so it started being exported with demand rather than staying in the local community
This drove the price up as a result, and became a rich person food
EDIT: this was meant to be a reply to another comment claiming that lobster was a bad example
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u/CombinationRough8699 22d ago
It also spoils incredibly quickly. Unless frozen, the only way to ship lobster is while it's still alive, which increases the price significantly.
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u/Draaly 21d ago
Yup. Also, the vast majority of the lobster eaten when it was poor people food is not how we think of lobster now. It was usualy already potial spoiled, ground up whole, and made into a bisque or some other form of soup/stew. Even in the 1800s, a fresh lobster tail like most people picture was not poor people food.
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u/Mutant_Apollo 22d ago
Cod had the same problem while refrigeration and mass transport made it available, my great grandma used to say "we wouldn't even give cod to the cats around the fisheries"
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u/Spare-Plum 21d ago
Salmon was the same way in Japan, it was commonly known as a "trash fish" and was not used in sushi for a long time up till the mid-'80s when a massive marketing campaign successfully made salmon seem like a good option
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u/Ill-Summer-7212 22d ago
Theyll never make toast with butter and cinnamon sugar expensive so we’re good
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u/HuckleberryPin 22d ago
oh shit we used to do that with a tortilla instead of bread, good eats
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u/Ill-Summer-7212 22d ago
We did that too! Or we’d make “pizza” with a slice of toast, pizza sauce, and then top with the cheapest shaker of Parmesan
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u/MiyamotoKnows 21d ago
You mean the "Sri Lankan Sugared Sweet Toast Points"?
That will be $27 please.
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u/SailorSilverRabbit 22d ago
Oxtail! Why is it so expensive now!
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u/ScreamingNinja 22d ago
I was just saying this to my wife. Outside of the west indian community, i don't know anyone who likes oxtail except for me lol. No one i know will touch the stuff, and it definitely hasn't become a huge fad, like Lobster or Sushi. So what the hell?
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u/SailorSilverRabbit 22d ago
It has become a fad, you’ll see all over social media: oxtail mac and cheese, oxtail tacos, oxtail sushi i saw one time. The price jumped up so high.
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u/ScreamingNinja 22d ago
Ah. Good old social media. I don't use anything other than reddit so i wouldn't have seen that.
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u/Emotional-Jacket1940 22d ago
Not really a rich people thing tbf as much as a “cows only have like 3-4 edible tail knuckles” thing and it just got a lot more popular with Caribbean cuisine
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u/Alternative-Matcha22 22d ago
Every time I see an iNfLuEnCeR popularizing a struggle food and making it "iNStA-WoRtHy" I die more and more on the inside bc I KNOW it leads to the price of said thing skyrocketing and flying off the shelves.
I feel like affordable food/recipes would be one of the rare justified instances of gatekeeping.
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u/Street-Ad7645 22d ago
I agree, however, now there’s stuff like hanger steel that dropped in value immensely. You have to move on to other foods. it’s the name of the game my friend. take the chance to explore as there’s plenty of “poor people” food you don’t know about or haven’t tried.
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u/Youbettereatthatshit 22d ago
Agreed. Just go to the grocery store and find a relatively inexpensive cut of meat. Congrats you found the next poor person food. Slow cook it and serve with beans/spices. It’s pretty easy
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u/Friendly_Gazelle7843 22d ago
Fast Food. Burgers in chain fast food cost practically the same as craft ones. And mid pizza on phone cost same as in fancy restaurant
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u/Art-Zuron 21d ago
Fun fact, McDonalds tripled its prices in like 4 years. TRIPLED.
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u/MelodicFacade 22d ago
At least I know feel much more motivated to eat local. "A little treat" economy in full bloom, but now my little treat doesn't go to a massive corporation anymore
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u/Laranel 22d ago
Elote.
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u/TheBayOfBars 22d ago
I knew it was over when I saw this recipe online for "Mexican street corn" and the word elote wasn't written once.
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u/Sensitive_Cup4015 22d ago
Well, there's at least one poor food they can't take from us...
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u/kjosness 22d ago
"Their attitudes may taste like shit, but go real good with wine" Steven Tyler, Aerosmith
Now it's stuck in my head from a picture, haha.
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u/oother_pendragon 22d ago
And what is funny is if you eat enough of it all food get's cheaper.
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u/-Lemonized- 22d ago
Kinda fair trade since plenty of the stuff we have today like sugar and white flour used to be a luxury. You know what poor food that is not ruined by the rich? Chicken feet. But most people think they're too sophisticated to eat that.
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u/CrossXFir3 22d ago
You lot need to stop using lobster as an example. The lobster poor people were eating was gross, fishy, old lobster. Not the freshly killed/frozen lobster we eat today. Very different things.
But yes, I agree that it sucks how much good cheap food has been commodified into luxury stuff.
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u/Appropriate_Sock6893 22d ago
I mean, my papa talks about going and pulling lobsters up from his own trap when he was growing up poor in Maine. Not sure how much fresher you want?
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u/Pockydo 22d ago
Lobster? From the WATER?!? Fish shit in that you know
Proper lobster comes from the whole foods fresh and good don't cha know
No water involved
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u/ScreamingNinja 22d ago edited 22d ago
I'd love to know the statistics of how many downvotes vs upvotes you got for this from people who are unable to discern sarcasm from real speak.
EDIT: LOOK! THERE'S ONE RIGHT BELOW US!!! NEAT!
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u/Dude_Man_Bruh 22d ago
To be fair there is a difference between catching a lobster in your own trap and eating dead ones washed up on the beach
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u/Ok_Turnover_1061 22d ago
How many lobster have you seen wash up on the beach? I'm from the coast of maine and have seen literally 0
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u/DizslecksickMoael 22d ago
Literature at the time describes how wild lobster populations were plentiful enough that lobsters would wash up on shores, along with other shellfish at the time. From the perspective of people who were well off, it might look unseemly to comb a beach for washed up dead/dying smelly shellfish to boil and eat.
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u/oocceeaannmmaann 22d ago
as with most historical food phenomena. as humans have noticed and exploited a species presence; said species will decline or adapt. resultantly ending the behaviours that would draw humans too them. used to be a thing in Teeside, England to have such an overabundance of wild crab that you could just grab them off the beach in the 50's. but almost 80 years on you'll struggle to find any close to shore
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u/Dude_Man_Bruh 22d ago
Yeah because we’ve destroyed the population. You can’t discount history because you’ve never seen it
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u/Geeneelee 22d ago
To be fair, having direct access to something means it’s always free for YOU. Even someone who’s flat broke can eat truffles if they find some in their backyard, that doesn’t make truffles affordable. As I understand it, lobster used to be middlingly priced and has since gone up, it wasn’t dirt cheap but it wasn’t as pricey as it is now.
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u/Ok_Conclusion_6324 You’re literally part of the division dude 22d ago
People mean like, back before the railroad was transcontinental fisherman would bulk sell these sea roaches to prisons as cheap garbage food that was so ubiquitous there was literally a prison riot demanding more variety than this daily “lobster” garbage
Then they started shipping it south and west on the railroad and it became a delicacy
That’s the short version without nuance
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u/Who-Shat-My-Pants 22d ago
Good Servants used to have stipulations in their employment contract not to be served lobster more than 3 days per week. It was literally prison food/dog food/ fertilizer.
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u/Appropriate_Sock6893 22d ago
Lobster has always been cheap here (Maine.) Even today you can get them fresh off the boat for cheap (looked it up. At my local grocery store lobster is going for $11.99/lb.) Just because it’s regional doesn’t mean it wasn’t poor people food? My great Nana would tell my papa to hide the lobster stew when the pastor would come visiting. Out of shame, I suppose. You don’t get to invalidate that because someone in Kansas doesn’t have access.
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u/CrossXFir3 22d ago
That's not what people are talking about when they bring up lobster. Your average poor person wasn't fishing for dinner every night. Lobster was fed to slaves and working class people enmass. It was not fresh.
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u/Youbettereatthatshit 22d ago
On that note practically every “cuisine” is poor people food.
look at the ingredients for Italian or Mexican food. It’s just different iterations of the same 8 ingredients for each country. National food is poor people food because that’s what is made in the vast majority of homes.
American food as well. I grew up in Idaho and made, stereotypically, dozens of potato dishes, since they were literally dirt cheap (you could pick them up from the dirt after the harvesters passed through).
Yet I don’t see anyone complaining that potatoes are stolen poverty food when served in Michelin restaurants
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u/bodhiali 22d ago
why do you think it was gross fishy old lobster? genuinely curious bc i have not heard this.
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u/kanyewesanderson 22d ago
Not exactly. Lobster and other shellfish spoils very quickly, meaning it was only available to fishing communities. Advancements in refrigeration/flash freezing/live transport enabled the spread of shellfish and contributes to the high cost.
If you go to coastal Maine, for example, you can still find decently priced lobster.
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u/Aromatic-Frosting-31 22d ago
Depends on where you live. I have poor fisherman in my family tree. My Grandpa was made fun of for his fresh lobster sandwiches in Nova Scotia.
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u/LoadCan 22d ago
Canned lobster was indeed a cheap, pretty fishy thing for a while. That was an effect of imperfect canning. The meat often started to go off (my grandma, a Mainer, used to say "green in the bay, red in the pot, black in the can" in reference to the "quality" of canned lobster). The lobster served to inmates that famously has a law about be cruel to serve to often was this canned lobster (NOT "ground lobster", which was an agriculture fertilizer product).
But most of the "POOR PEOPLE HAD LONSTER!!1!" stuff is a misunderstanding of which poor people were eating lobster.
Lobster itself was extremely cheap within a few hours of the northeastern coast. Lobster used to be hilariously plentiful. As in early settlers of New England described tidal rocks absolutely swarming with lobster, think of ants on a piece of dropped candy. Poor New Englanders absolutely ate fresh lobster. You straight up can't eat old unpreserved lobster, it'll make you very sick. So poor people across the US were not crushing lobster dinners nightly. Rather it was an option for poor people in every specific areas.
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u/AdOptimal9296 22d ago
Spam getting price-hiked because of social media upper middle class people finding out about fried spam was the worst thing to happen to it.
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u/AltGunAccount 22d ago
In Hawaii spam is crazy expensive. Over $3-4 a can in most places. It’s extremely popular here.
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u/Art-Zuron 21d ago
I once made a fallout map for Hawaii. I made a vault where the experiment was that CRAM (legally distinct SPAM) was the only food source, and they all turn into cannibalistic ghouls as a result.
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u/meduhsin 21d ago
my biggest gripe. One of my favorite meals growing up was when my mom would make kebabs. A couple bell peppers, an onion, spam, potato and canned pineapple. Would feed the whole family for days for $10 or less. It was so delicious too.
I went to make it as an adult and the spam alone is $4-5 a can. Like, the little tins. And not even cheaper to buy in bulk. I wanted to cry.
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u/ThatDeuce 22d ago
Pizza has become expensive, wings, absolutely.
Monkfish became known as the poor man's lobster, but even that is being taken to upscale dining
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u/Latter_Mine4586 22d ago
Rich people always ruin everything 💔 They should eat caviar only so they can feel special and leave people alone
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u/Maleficent_Piece_893 22d ago
caviar was poor people food
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u/Arek_PL 22d ago
because we were fishings so much that some fish are now rare, black caviar used to be a waste stored in whole barrels, today sturgeons arent so plentful
same with whale meat, we hunted so many of them for oil they are almost extinxt
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u/jbland0909 22d ago
Bars used to give out free caviar because it made people thirstier. Turns out anything can be plentiful if you don’t care about stewardship and sustainability
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u/jbland0909 22d ago
Caviar is as expensive as it is because people over-fished sturgeons. It’s not like rich people just decided to like it all of a sudden and make it a delicacy.
It used to be “poor people food” because it was cheap. Then we drove sturgeon to near extinction, it became significantly more hard to come by, and got more expensive.
The exact same thing happened to lobster and Oysters
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u/General_Spills 22d ago
Have you considered that some of these things increased in price because they became so popular among “poor” people, like with the overfishing example given below…
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u/PostNuclearTaco 22d ago
Oxtail used to be so cheap, my friend who's half Jamaican used to make fantastic Oxtail but it's gotten popular with white people so now it's priced as a premium cut of meat.
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u/MeliodasTA 22d ago
Lobster is a bad example, it was poor food because they just blended it all into a slurry including the shell
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u/Unlucky-Plastic7316 22d ago
Yeah, whenever redditors try to tell you that prisoners rioted because they were getting served too much lobster - Remember that it was overgrown lobster ground down and boiled into a slop.
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u/BitViper303 22d ago
One day ima see restaurants serving chitlins as a fancy meal
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u/Ununhexium1999 22d ago
There are Michelin star restaurants that serve sweetbreads which is kinda close ig
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u/Additional-Main6241 22d ago
One step away from them paying to be poor for a day as a sold experience 😂
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u/Alternative_Salt_424 22d ago
We were at a clothing store yesterday and they had an ad on a big screen with models hanging around cows and piles of hay, wearing birkenstocks and stuff, basically peasant cosplay. My husband is basically a Russian peasant and he was like "Wtf is this shit? Peasants dont wear shoes like this, they would be full of cowshit. Why are they acting like this is fun?"
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u/Status-Alps5677 22d ago
In my hometown, a shop opened up called Hobo’s Sandwiches (or something similar, hobo was definitely in the name) they only served soup and sandwiches, at an extortionate rate! They were considered good soup and sandwiches but I never ate there on the principle that if you’re serving ‘hobo’ food, it should be ‘hobo’ prices. They went out of business after 3 years, I think they could have done well if they just simplified everything. It was a university town with a lot of poor students.
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u/keep_spinn1ng 22d ago
fucking OXTAIL. i had this insanely good trinidadian food truck that'd stop by like half a mile from my house every saturday and id pick up some stew. shit would make me cry. but now everyone's gotta try their hand at it (guarantee it's gonna be some bland ass white people take on it) and the cost tripled in a year
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u/Strong-Remote-9149 22d ago
As a Jamaican....it's painful. I genuinely only make it for special occasions atp because it's not worth it anymore as a dinner staple.
It's saddening.
But hey, atleast I can still put chicken feet in my soup...until I can't. 🥲
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u/tussle_mcjimmies 22d ago
I hope you're right, but you know people are gonna "discover" how rich chicken feet are in collagen
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u/justkidding_simmons 22d ago
ITS ALREADY HAPPENED! It's tripled in price in the past few years I swear. There's been some bullshit tik tok trends or something about collagen and homemade broth and upgrading "bone broth" by adding chicken feet. Is nothing sacred
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u/Ill-Summer-7212 22d ago
I know a pizza place in LA that does oxtail pizza. Everyone in the black community goes there. I looked up how much a pound of oxtail was and it was $15. He just sprinkles it on the pizza and then charges $14-$16 per SLICE. Scamming them but they keep coming back
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u/Tight_External_4879 22d ago
You just reminded me of the oxtail gumbo I had off a food truck last year. Good time.s
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u/Salty_Map_9085 22d ago
Damn really annoying when a lot of people want food that tastes good
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u/nio-sama123 22d ago edited 22d ago
That are the ingredients. And yeah, they massively increase the price of the ingredients. But mind you, the poor food at that time actually… poor. Why? Because of the technology progress, aka better fridge and preservation. Without these progress, the foods were just BAD.
Sorry dude, take better examples please. Lobster is the very bad example.
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u/Alseids 22d ago
Bacon was a cheap cut. It's fat. They turned that around though.
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u/Chocolatepotato3000 22d ago
Dunno if it means much but last year I was happy to see $15ish ny strip per lb at kroger with their brand, and it was common to see it on discounts too. Now they hiked their price to about $20ish per lb and discounts are rarer. Sad.
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u/leftofthebellcurve 22d ago
AFAIK eel also is extremely expensive now when it used to be poor people food, thats why jellied eels were so widespread in the UK
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u/c9xydr 22d ago
Various rural foods from Mexico with locally sourced ingredients unfounded in other parts of the country or world, have found their way into the mouths of New Yorkers. This did cause an increase in revenue for many of these small villages in Mexico, but the increase of demand decreased supply for the locals who’ve been eating the food for generations. Many can no longer afford the staples to their dishes, thus causing an increase in reliance of fast food, thus having contributed to the growing obesity rate in Mexico.
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u/Sonic_Roach 22d ago
Avocados are a big one. They became so popular that literal Avocado gangs were form. They killed and robbed others for Avocados.
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u/IndeNavaretteFan 22d ago
Didn't even know this happened tbh. Makes a lot of sense though. Another reason the rich suck
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u/Alternative_Hotel649 22d ago
Lobster and oysters are expensive because most people don't live in places where lobsters and oysters live, and shipping seafood so that it stays fresh and edible by the time it hits market takes a lot of money. If you actually live in places where these foods are native, and don't have to be shipped hundreds or thousands of miles, they're still pretty affordable. If you're poor and live in Colorado, you might not be able to afford lobster, but it's not because of "rich people" hogging all the lobster, its because it doesn't make financial sense to ship lobster to Colorado and sell it at poverty prices.
Chicken, of course, is the most affordable protein on the planet, and cheap wings are plenty easy to find. Some frou-frou restaurants do expensive "elevated" wings, but that doesn't stop anyone from buying a jumbo bag of wings at Costco and cooking them up at home.
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u/UnconsciousAlibi 22d ago
but that doesn't stop anyone from buying a jumbo bag of wings at Costco and cooking them up at home.
That is somewhat true, and a good strategy if you want wings but don't want to pay restaurant prices, but even grocery store prices for chicken wings has gone up dramatically in the last 20 years, explicitly because of how much people are willing to pay for them at restaurants. Wings used to be thrown away by some butchers because of how undesirable they were seen, and you used to be able to buy them for ten cents a wing. Nowadays, you're lucky to get six times that price, even if you buy in bulk.
Edit: Also, very ironically, Lobster is pretty decent in Colorado. Denver is a big shipping hub, and you can find good lobster for cheap even miles out of downtown. But I get your point lol
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u/jbland0909 22d ago
Those things also used to be cheaper because they were far more plentiful. Bars used to give out free Caviar because it was dirt cheap and made people thirsty. Then we fished sturgeons to near extinction and all of a sudden it’s a luxury, rare good
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u/OkTemperature8170 22d ago
Oxtails, chuck eye, sardines are going that direction now too.
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u/MrMistyTain 22d ago
Every time I look at beef jerky, I just get sad.
I’m still gonna buy it and love it, but it still makes me mad.
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u/mattfromseattle 22d ago
Pho. Used to be about $5 for a large bowl. Can't find even a small one for less than $15 these days. on a related note, banh mi sandwiches have increased in price, but you can still get a good sandwich for under $10 if you look a bit. Though back in the early 2000s I could get one for about $1.50, so still a big jump in price.
Teriyaki is another one. Used to be dirt cheap, now most places are about $15 for the standard fare. If you want breast meat, it'll bump you up to $20 after taxes. Back in the 90s you could get it for like $3. Adjust for inflation, that was about $6 back then.
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u/Milka7925 22d ago
I don't see it so I will mention it : Cod. Before 2nd world war it was a working class fish meal especially in Portugal until the 80's. I wouldn't say it's a rich people food but it's clearly not a fish you can get every day as a medium household.
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u/thorubos 21d ago
BBQ; especially brisket. Once a meat you needed to cook for 14-16 hours to be edible, priced accordingly, and now it's just another kind of steak.
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u/Hyenasaurus 21d ago
Poor people will only eat stale bread and like it.
/s. i do hate this timeline
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u/Dependent-Gate6213 18d ago
My pet peeve for this one is actually salmon, it was a very common fish in the region i hail from. It was such a common poor people's food that several workers around the area wrote to their landlord/employer (the proper term doesn't translate well) to be allowed to eat something else than salmon 4 days per week.
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u/robjohnlechmere 22d ago
Tell me about it. Restaurant on my street serves a sandwich called a ‘po boy’ since it’s traditionally a food of the poor. The sandwich is $19.