The Most Expensive Bacon in the World

Bacon is generally thought of as a humble meat that is most commonly served as a food item in breakfasts or in a bacon sandwich. It is a food that many people buy because it is cheap, versatile, and easy to cook. Some people view a bacon sandwich as the perfect hangover cure. Most people would not view a bacon sandwich as a luxury food that they are willing to pay big bucks for as bread, butter, and bacon are ingredients that are readily available in shops and a common item on people’s grocery lists. Despite people viewing bacon and bacon sandwiches as a quick and easy snack option, there are actually examples of these foods that have a twist and their creators expect diners to pay high prices for the luxury of eating these.

One example is the world’s most expensive rasher of bacon. It is a rasher of streaky bacon that is covered in rich, dark chocolate and then dusted with edible 23-carat gold. This is an expensive treat for bacon lovers as it is $39.99 per rasher. However, this is nothing in comparison to the cost of the world’s most expensive bacon sandwich.

At a cost of $235, or around £150, diners at Tangberry’s café in Cheltenham, England, can enjoy the most expensive bacon sandwich in the world. The World Record Academy confirmed that they had broken this record. It is created by the establishment’s owner, Paul Philips, and is a whopping 38 times more expensive than the next priciest bacon sandwich on the menu at Tangberry’s.

So, what makes this bacon sandwich so special and why are diners expected to pay such a high-price for this lunch item? It all comes down to the ingredients used to create the bacon sandwich and this is how the creator justifies the high price. The bacon used on the sandwich is a form of rare breed bacon that is more expensive than the regular streaky or back bacon found on supermarket shelves. The sandwich also features a fried egg.

It is the additional items on the sandwich that make it stand out from other bacon butties and have raised the price to such an astronomic level. Some of the extra items found on this extraordinary sandwich include saffron, gold dust, gold leaf, black truffles, and truffle oil. Each of these is an expensive luxury ingredient.

Bizarrely, Paul Philips is not creating this bacon sandwich to turn a profit in his café. Instead, he is giving away any proceeds to charity. He is creating this meal to help raise money for a non-profit organization called SKRUM. This is a charity that uses rugby to give the children of Swaziland a social education.

While this is the most expensive sandwich in the world, it is not the only one that is unusual or has a high price tag. British chef Heston Blumenthal has also made an unusually expensive bacon sandwich. He was recruited by NASA to create food that astronauts could eat in space. Blumenthal spent months researching how best to retain the flavor in dried foods so that the astronauts could enjoy their favorite food flavors while away from home for long periods of time. Tasty food is something that has been difficult to achieve in the world of space exploration in the past.

One of the dishes the celebrity chef created was a bacon sandwich. He felt that this was the perfect comfort food for the astronauts to enjoy in space. Although the components of the sandwiches themselves are not expensive, there were other costs attached to the creation of these meals. For example, the creation process took up man hours and various pieces of equipment were involved in developing a bacon sandwich that could survive the drying and rehydrating process. Another major cost involved was the transportation of the food to space. According to Heston Blumenthal, the project cost millions of dollars in fuel alone.

These examples just go to show how it is possible to transform a humble piece of meat to a luxurious and expensive food item. Next time you are making a bacon sandwich for your mid-morning snack, you will look at your bacon in an entirely different light.