Taiyo No Tamago
atlasobscura.comIs that $2,000 price a real thing, or just a publicity stunt?
They cite that as happening at a wholesale auction. The photograph depicts mango for 9800 yen, about $100. Still absurd, but more than an order of magnitude less.
It puts me in mind of the guy who breaks records every year by buying a tuna for millions of dollars:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/01/07/168813383/th...
Expensive food items are part of the Japanese gift giving culture. These aren't meant for everyday consumption. Rather, this is a way to give a gift that won't take up space in the home. Gifts of durable goods would accumulate into a massive inconvenience. This price structure also enables inefficient labor practices that do genuinely improve the quality of the produce.
I'm certainly all for edible gifts. I don't need any more clutter.
I'd just as soon not get one that I'd feel weird about eating for being supremely expensive... but I can say that I'm happy to have "slow food" that somebody put time and effort into.
I'm not sure where I'd draw the line between the two. Perhaps a factor of 2. Maybe even 10. But please don't give me a $100 mango.
$2000 is a publicity stunt. Basically, the grower auctions the first fruit of the season and the winner is interviewed on TV and gets to promote his business. It's exactly like the ludicrous tuna auction but on a local level.
The $100 fruit is a premium item that comes in a nice box appropriate to send as a gift. Note: This isn't that different from the premium gift boxes sold in the U.S. (e.g., Harry and David box of six pears and some nuts for $100).
My guess is as good as any, but the first fruit of the season can sometimes go for quite high prices.
There is probably a race to get the first fruits of the season, plus auctions to drive up the prices of those first picks.
The sushi guy and his tuna is totally a publicity stunt.
In this case, I think it helps to consider the mango as art rather than food.
It's a similar thing with Koi Carp.
But even more important than delicious flavors and meticulous care is Japan’s gift-giving culture. It is a sign of respect to give gifts for business dealings, for special occasions and social events, or when returning home after traveling (known as omiyage). High-quality, expensive fruits are a valued symbol of respect within this practice.
Ah, if it was only the thought that counted... :)
Honestly though, I wonder if there's a cottage industry around expensive gifts in Japan, if this is the case. Is it easy to market a new fruit growing technique to produce the hot new omiyage and sell it at an insane mark up? Because that seems to be what matters more than utility or thoughtfulness.
There are all kinds of artificially expensive fruit in japan (square watermelons, for example) but also lots of "exemplars" of the season are expensive. But also they farm expensive mostly decorative fruit: https://stickymangorice.com/2020/05/29/japan-expensive-fruit...
It's a good thing, these aren't considered pseudo-bribery or "large gifts" in Japan.
Some of the cost is down to the cultivation of the plant and pruning of the less desirable fruit. As far as I'm aware the goal with some fruit is that the nutrients are funnelled to the best fruit. So a single plant produces less fruit but the quality and taste is far superior, in comparison to the west where the goal is high yield at-the sacrifice other attributes.
Kind of. I think you're way overstating the case. Most fruit in Japan are also produced for quantity and not for some other quality. They also avoid "ugly fruit" but there are some special markets dedicated to "ugly" fuits and veggies.
For "gift-grade" fruit, like melons, that is indeed how it's done. They prune all but the best 3 candidates, then after they grow a bit more, select the best and prune the other 2 away so that the plant is producing only one high-grade fruit.
Sorry yes, not all food is grown like I've suggested but a lot is.
My wife's family have a food business in Japan and they have better insight into this. The bulk of what they do is source high quality ingredients for restaurants and a fair amount of it is niche. The most memorable were edible flowers from a specific place in Japan, mushrooms from a different corner of the country, specific fish from certain markets, the best cuts of Wagyu beef.
They have a little corner shop too for the locals but in general the produce is many times more expensive than you would see in the West, however the food is delicious all year around not just when it's in season. It was a real novelty when my mother in law came to visit and was able to buy strawberries for about £4, when in Japan she's used to paying something like £30+.
Kinda reminds me of when aristocrats used to rent fruits like pineapples to display them at parties. Not even to eat, but just as a decorative item and a symbol of wealth.
The price sticker clearly says 9800円 (yen), which is similar to $100 (especially CAD), not $2000.
宮崎産: Miazaki san: product of Miyazaki Prefecture.
Still, $100 is well into diminshing returns of crazy, so $2000 wouldn't make much of a difference.
I don’t oppose giving expensive fruits as gifts, but it gets weird if it also means fruits become generally unaffordable for casual/daily consumption.
If memory serves, when I stayed in Tokyo for a month some 15 or 16 years ago, I was absolutely puzzled by the lack of affordable fruit.
Besides, Japanese produce growers seem to have an unhealthy obsession with sweetness. Most Japanese fruits seem to be advertised for their sweetness, and they ARE sweet, so much so that you taste almost nothing else, not even hints of fruitiness.
Reminded me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubari_King .