What rare and expensive foods have you tried? How are they?

[Retrograde]

17. I'll try anything once

well, just about - I still draw the line at poutine, and I'm not fond of gall bladder (or whatever that dark spongy thing a local Chinese restaurant puts in their otherwise excellent tripe stew).

Good quality ahi is worth the price to me - when you can find it. I've had actual Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee many, many years ago, when it was still possible to get the real unadulterated beans fro less than a mortgage payment, and yes, it was very good.

I confess I have eaten whale in Norway. Once was a free sample of whale sausage (which tasted just like the reindeer sausage which tasted just like the beef sausage), and once at a restaurant that specialized in local foods - that tasted like horse. The drawback to eating whale in Norway is that there an accompanying lecture on how it's sustainably caught. (It's sold in fish markets: it's weird to see a big chuck of red mammalian meat in the display with the normal fish).

I've had real Kobe beef in Japan (on someone else's expense account) and it was good. I can still taste the foie gras I had in Paris in 1999 - it's that rich. I'd like to someday have enough black truffles to be able to taste them.

My current vice is Cowgirl Creamery's Red Hawk cheese: it's good that it's too expensive to indulge in frequently, so it stays a treat.

I'll pay a premium for better quality meats, and eat less of them as a result.

Where I really see a difference in quality between cheaper and more expensive is with chocolate: cheap chocolates - especially the leftover Halloween ones - taste vaguely of chocolate but seem to just pique my chocolate craving. With the more concentrated premium ones I can eat one square a day and that's sufficient.

As for wines, my cellar is a mix of higher end Californian wines saved for special ocassions or for drinking with friends, a case of Two Buck Chuck for cooking, and whatever Trader Joe's had on sale.