We often talk about finding the silver lining but when it comes to India’s favourite metal...no one can deny our love for luminous gold. From kaju katli to gujia, silver-coated sweetmeats are already a common fare in the country, but now our obsession with gold has transcended to the culinary world as well.
A certain paan shop in Delhi has even gone viral on social media for its rafaello gold paan that is being sold for 600 rupees. Yamu’s Panchayat loads the paan with the traditional chuna, fennel seeds and of course, gulkand. But the hero is its wrapping of ‘pure gold’ varq and a chocolate topping.
But this is far from the first eatery to experiment with gold-plated food.
In Dubai, the home of gold lovers, a hotel actually sells gold-plated coffee! Named ‘The Ultimate Gold Cappuccino’, it is served at the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel for $26 or nearly 2,000 rupees. Laced with 24-karat gold, the signature coffee was spotted on the Instagram page of former actor Sana Khan recently.
Gold-plated dosas are quite the buzz in Southern India. The luxury concept originally shot to fame after a restaurant in Bangalore launched a 24-karat gold-plated dosa worth over 1,000 rupees as a marketing strategy. Now, the shiny dish is part of the permanent menu at several restaurants across South India.
Burgers are synonymous with fast food and we often associate them with quick, affordable meals but not this one! A restaurant in Colombia gave its burger a luxurious twist with 24-karat gold. The burger, bathed in gold, costs 200,000 Columbian Pesos or nearly 4,200 rupees. The restaurant even claimed that the gold used is in its purest form.
No golden food list would be complete without dessert. In fact, the world’s most expensive dessert, an ice cream sundae by a New York restaurant, features gold as one of its hero ingredients. Priced at a record $25,000 or 18.3 lakh rupees, ‘The Frrrozen Haute Chocolate ice cream sundae’ boasts of a coating of 5 grams of edible 23-karat gold. What’s more, the dessert is served in a goblet lined with edible gold and is to be eaten with a golden spoon.
Gold-plated food sounds like the perfect way to taste luxury, but is there anything to it beyond a beautiful Instagram picture? While we know that consuming edible gold is generally safe, we wonder whether you can actually reap any of its healing benefits on a burger or even ice cream for that matter?