General Knowledge
💎 Expensive or Cheap: Food Edition
Saffron, truffles, and wagyu — can you guess the real price?
Saffron, truffles, and wagyu — can you guess the real price?
Saffron requires 75,000 hand-picked crocus flowers per pound, making it the world's most labor-intensive spice — and potentially more expensive per pound than gold. Yet 95% of the "vanilla" we eat is synthetic, and the truffle oil on your restaurant pasta probably contains zero actual truffle. This quiz separates the genuinely pricey from the budget staples.
Each round presents 10 randomized multiple-choice questions drawn from a pool of 50, so every playthrough is different. You get instant feedback with explanations after each answer, plus a shareable score at the end.
You'll learn why certain foods command extreme prices (labor, rarity, aging, certification), which common foods are shockingly cheap staples, the truth behind premium imposters like truffle oil and fake wasabi, the stories behind record-breaking food prices at auction, and the economics of luxury ingredients from Wagyu to Kopi Luwak coffee.
Saffron costs $500–$5,000 per pound because each crocus flower produces only three tiny stigmas, which must be hand-picked in the few hours each flower blooms. It takes approximately 75,000 crocus flowers — representing an enormous amount of hand labor — to produce just one pound of saffron. Iran produces around 90% of the world's supply.
Yes — dramatically so. About 99% of wasabi served worldwide, even in Japanese restaurants, is actually a mixture of horseradish, mustard powder, and green food dye. Real wasabi (Wasabia japonica) costs around $250 per kilogram because it grows only in specific mountain stream conditions and takes 2–3 years to mature. Real wasabi's heat is gentler and disappears faster than the horseradish substitute.
Opinions vary, but bottled water may hold the crown for sheer markup — sometimes 2,000 times the price of tap water with little to no quality difference. For luxury foods, white truffles command $2,000–$6,000 per pound yet cannot be farmed. In 2019, a single bluefin tuna sold for $3.1 million at Tokyo's Toyosu market, though this was partly a publicity stunt by a sushi chain owner.
Last updated: March 2026