Let's talk luxury foods and how they came to be.

The men's room top ten.

The men's room top ten.

So this comes to us via list verse, one of my favorite websites out here, and it's ten modern

delicacies that started out, what do you know, as poverty rations?

Funny how that works.

As a lot of luxury dishes do, they start out as poverty rations.

So let's start at number 10 on the list. They go with polenta. So after corn was introduced

from the Americans to Italy, it became a staple crop because it was easy to grow in difficult

soil. For centuries, the rural poor subsisted almost entirely on this cornmeal mush because

they couldn't afford wheat or meat.

The reliance on the polenta was so extreme that it led to a widespread health crisis known

as Pelagra, I believe, because the peasants were not processing the corn with lime.

They suffered from severe niacin deficiencies and resulted in a peasant disease.

The modern transformation of Palenta occurred when chefs began to experiment with textures and enrichment of the dish by adding large amounts of butter, parmesan cheese, cream. And then it was elevated to a luxurious comfort food. And crispy and delicious, have done right. I don't know that I've ever had Palenta. It's not bad. I mean, it's fairly flavorless, but it's good. A little bit of flavor you gets good.

Think of like moist fried corn bread. Okay. Like corn, cheese, butter. I'm in. Right. I mean, that's it. Yeah, there's a place I know that has polenta fries. They're pretty good. That sounds like it would be fantastic. And the worst thing that happens is that rich people discover good food because their food's trash, right? But they discover good food and then they ruin it for the rest of us because the price goes up.

All of New Orleans is that. Not just that, but fashion as well. You know, we talk about the Chuck Taylor's all the doggone time. That was Kmart's bargain bin, and now all of a sudden they're $80. That is correct. Back to more modern delicacies that started as poverty rations.

Sushi!

In ancient Japan, sushi was a method of preserving fish in fermented rice.

The rice was actually not meant to be eaten at all.

It served as a casing that produced lactic acid to keep the fish from spoiling.

Once the fermentation process was complete, the pungent sour rice was discarded,

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