4 ms·

I'm in-between two minds. On one end £9 of labour cost for a plate of asparagus seems deeply inefficient and unrealistic, particularly when the cost of ingredie

by simgt 3mo ago

I'm in-between two minds. On one end £9 of labour cost for a plate of asparagus seems deeply inefficient and unrealistic, particularly when the cost of ingredients that also include (hard) labour is £2. On the other, just a century ago being served quality food in a nicely decorated place was exclusively the privilege of aristocrats.

meheleventyone 3mo ago
> On one end £9 of labour cost for a plate of asparagus seems deeply inefficient and unrealistic, particularly when the cost of ingredients that also include (hard) labour is £2. Presumably the staffing cost is the front of house staff as well as the actual cooking and then the cost of employing someone to wash dishes, clean the restraunt and so on. Then compared to growing asparagus which seems to largely come from countries with substantially lower wages. Restraunts have always been infamously low margin businesses though.
cma 3mo ago
A century ago was 1926.
- simgt 3mo ago
  Yes
  - dungdevourer 3mo ago
    bro really thinks restaurants invented after ww2 lmao
    - simgt 3mo ago
      Maybe learn to read comments. Less than a third of the population had running water at home in countries like France before WW2. In 1960 a quarter had a fridge. But sure, commoners had access to the kind of place described in the article in 1926. Get a grip.
      - cma 3mo ago
        For one, 1926 we didn't have just "commoners" and "aristocrats." Two, people would save for special occasions at places like fancy restaurants, even if not to the extent of today, and even if more constrained to larger cities.
6510 3mo ago
I see some interviews where asparagus farmers explained that the market forces them to sell at a loss. It is apparently an uniquely complicated crop. They talk about price per kg but I see 4 on the plate? 12 to 20 gram each. 48 to 80 grams total. 21 to 12.5 portions in a kg. £15 to £20 per 1000g 15/21 = 0.714 15/12.5 = 1.20 20/21 = 0.95 20/12.5 = 1.60 > chop off their woody ends to lacto-ferment, so we can use them elsewhere Then you cant even say it costs 1.60 in ingredients per plate. It might even be that it costs 72 cents and that the customer gets only 60 cents worth of vegetables. > asparagus can actually be more expensive than some proteins It's not actually the asparagus but the preparation that costs money. > Overall, the ingredients for this dish are around £3, but the labour, energy and everything else comes to £56 Say 60 which is 100 times 60 cents or 3-4 kg. The hidden cost is real estate for both the restaurant and the employees. They have few seats and the usual menu has a lot of different things. If say the city would buy the surrounding buildings (which is a good investment) and provided say 2000 to 7000 seats for free (we've already paid taxes) then reduce the menu to 3-4 meals that you pick up yourself at the counter people could eat there for next to nothing (which would be good for the economy) It wouldn't be the same experience of course.
pseudohadamard 3mo ago
I just see it as conspicuous consumption. If you want to pay 200 Zorkmids for someone to wash some oograh in duck's tears and then marinate it in bird's milk before cooking it over a wood fire made with Mongolian teak flown in fresh that morning then good for you, but are you really getting a better meal than the 10 Zorkmid plate from my local favourite restaurant or just setting fire to a pile of money to prove you can afford fancier wank than your neighbour?
Jimmc414 3mo ago
“On one end £9 of labour cost for a plate of asparagus seems deeply inefficient and unrealistic” Every time I’ve had this thought that I could recreate a dish and spend a lot less, I end up paying more for the same dish, with lower quality and I still have to do the dishes. It might not be as unrealistic as it seems if you aggregate the wages of all staff involved and divide it by the number of plates they serve over a night. I’m not a cook, but if someone offered me $9 to prepare them a comparable asparagus dish, it doesn’t sound that lucrative.

by simgt 3mo ago

meheleventyone 3mo ago

> On one end £9 of labour cost for a plate of asparagus seems deeply inefficient and unrealistic, particularly when the cost of ingredients that also include (hard) labour is £2. Presumably the staffing cost is the front of house staff as well as the actual cooking and then the cost of employing someone to wash dishes, clean the restraunt and so on. Then compared to growing asparagus which seems to largely come from countries with substantially lower wages. Restraunts have always been infamously low margin businesses though.

cma 3mo ago

A century ago was 1926.

simgt 3mo ago
Yes
- dungdevourer 3mo ago
  bro really thinks restaurants invented after ww2 lmao
  - simgt 3mo ago
    Maybe learn to read comments. Less than a third of the population had running water at home in countries like France before WW2. In 1960 a quarter had a fridge. But sure, commoners had access to the kind of place described in the article in 1926. Get a grip.
    - cma 3mo ago
      For one, 1926 we didn't have just "commoners" and "aristocrats." Two, people would save for special occasions at places like fancy restaurants, even if not to the extent of today, and even if more constrained to larger cities.

6510 3mo ago

I see some interviews where asparagus farmers explained that the market forces them to sell at a loss. It is apparently an uniquely complicated crop. They talk about price per kg but I see 4 on the plate? 12 to 20 gram each. 48 to 80 grams total. 21 to 12.5 portions in a kg. £15 to £20 per 1000g 15/21 = 0.714 15/12.5 = 1.20 20/21 = 0.95 20/12.5 = 1.60 > chop off their woody ends to lacto-ferment, so we can use them elsewhere Then you cant even say it costs 1.60 in ingredients per plate. It might even be that it costs 72 cents and that the customer gets only 60 cents worth of vegetables. > asparagus can actually be more expensive than some proteins It's not actually the asparagus but the preparation that costs money. > Overall, the ingredients for this dish are around £3, but the labour, energy and everything else comes to £56 Say 60 which is 100 times 60 cents or 3-4 kg. The hidden cost is real estate for both the restaurant and the employees. They have few seats and the usual menu has a lot of different things. If say the city would buy the surrounding buildings (which is a good investment) and provided say 2000 to 7000 seats for free (we've already paid taxes) then reduce the menu to 3-4 meals that you pick up yourself at the counter people could eat there for next to nothing (which would be good for the economy) It wouldn't be the same experience of course.

pseudohadamard 3mo ago

I just see it as conspicuous consumption. If you want to pay 200 Zorkmids for someone to wash some oograh in duck's tears and then marinate it in bird's milk before cooking it over a wood fire made with Mongolian teak flown in fresh that morning then good for you, but are you really getting a better meal than the 10 Zorkmid plate from my local favourite restaurant or just setting fire to a pile of money to prove you can afford fancier wank than your neighbour?

Jimmc414 3mo ago

“On one end £9 of labour cost for a plate of asparagus seems deeply inefficient and unrealistic” Every time I’ve had this thought that I could recreate a dish and spend a lot less, I end up paying more for the same dish, with lower quality and I still have to do the dishes. It might not be as unrealistic as it seems if you aggregate the wages of all staff involved and divide it by the number of plates they serve over a night. I’m not a cook, but if someone offered me $9 to prepare them a comparable asparagus dish, it doesn’t sound that lucrative.