According to Erik Sherman in “Restaurant's Decadent Thanksgiving Feast: $35,000 for 4” The Old Homestead Restaurant on Manhattan’s lower west side offered for Thanksgiving a $35,000 celebration for four people ($8,750 a person). The offer extended was to accommodate 3 groups of four.
By Tuesday two of the three celebration packages had been snapped up. One of the buyers was reported to be from a financial institution in NYC and another an out-of-towner.
The 40-year co-owner of the establishment, Marc Sherry, informed the Daily News: "We know it's over-the-top, but Thanksgiving comes once a year. If you can splurge for this, you have a lot to be thankful for."
Jenn Harris in “ This Thanksgiving dinner package costs $35,000, but it comes with a parade“ also quotes Mr. Sherry: "We kind of wanted to pamper all of the people who could afford it, ... And if they can afford it, God bless them."
Final Sherry quote from Phillip Guelpa In "The $35,000 Thanksgiving dinner": “What we’ve accomplished is to give the most outrageous, over-the-top Thanksgiving experience for a party of four that we could think up.”
According to Erik Sherman the American Farm Bureau Federation estimates that the average cost of a Thanksgiving dinner ($49.51) prepared for 10 people averages out to $5 a head. The Old Homestead was thus offering 12 meals that were 7000 times more expensive. Their alternative and more reasonably priced Thanksgiving day turkey meal was priced at $65 a person.
Here is the 9 course menu for the $35,000 meal deal (okay, “deal” a poor wording choice) as listed in the Daily News per Sherman. All you amateur chefs out there ready to take notes?
- Fois gras soaked in $5,000 a bottle Courvoisier L'Esprit cognac and then stuffed into squab.
- Organic turkey stuffed with seven pounds of ground Japanese Wagyu filet mignon.
- Gravy infused with $1,750 per bottle Chateau Mouton Rothschild.
- Cranberry orange relish with Grand Marnier.
- Butternut squash with black truffles.
- Mashed potatoes with Swedish moose cheese.
- Whipped sweet potatoes with Royal Osetra 000 caviar.
- Poached bourbon-soaked pears with pumpkin paste and a dusting of 24-carat gold flakes.
- Organic turkey stuffed with seven pounds of ground Japanese Wagyu filet mignon.
- Gravy infused with $1,750 per bottle Chateau Mouton Rothschild.
- Cranberry orange relish with Grand Marnier.
- Butternut squash with black truffles.
- Mashed potatoes with Swedish moose cheese.
- Whipped sweet potatoes with Royal Osetra 000 caviar.
- Poached bourbon-soaked pears with pumpkin paste and a dusting of 24-carat gold flakes.
Jenn Harris adds that the meal also included the most expensive bottle of wine the restaurant had, Champagne and Scotch, and a doggie bag of turkey sandwiches "for late night cravings."
Sherman:
The meal also comes with four prime grandstand seats to the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a $6,000 gift card for a Black Friday shopping spree at Bloomingdale's with door-to-door limousine service, and dancing lessons at Fred Astaire Dance Studios so you can learn the Turkey Trot.
Sherman offers the Old Homestead props for a couple of years ago when it took a “slightly different tack” for Thanksgiving and provided 200 people whose neighborhoods had been savaged by Hurricane Sandy with free meals.
Phillip Guelpa in “The $35,000 Thanksgiving dinner” does some humanitarian statistical consciousness-raising in his discussion of the excessively expensive, delicious-sounding and defiantly decadent meal.
The contrast between the conspicuous consumption of the city’s super-rich, the highest concentration of such individuals in the world, and the vast majority of the population is mind-boggling.snipSome 64,000 people, including 22,000 children, are homeless in New York City, according to the 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, released by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in November.snipIn a study released last year, the city’s Commission on Economic Opportunity (CEO) reported that more than 20 percent of New York residents live in poverty ...snipSome 46 percent of New Yorkers survived on less than 150 percent of the poverty line in 2011. In other words, nearly half of the city’s population was living in or near poverty.snipFood banks around the city have reported a dramatic increase in the number of families desperately seeking emergency food aid following last year’s cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.snipNew York City residents were deprived of some 56 million meals during an 11-month period as a result of the SNAP cuts, according to research by the Food Bank for New York City (FBNYC).
[cross-posted on correntewire]
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wow.. can't even imagine the rarefied air they breathe...
Since it is obvious the USA is owned and ruled by the richest people it becomes clear that there is an inverse relationship between intellect and wealth. If government policy does not make that clear this blog certainly does.
Great post and in such contrast to my hopeful post about feeding people. Inequality. Greed. Starvation. I just woke up from a nightmare where the military was massing and I had to hide in a hole. My only thought is that maybe the world will figure out how to feed people in mass. It could happen.
Can you really buy everything you need to fix Thanksgiving Dinner for 10 people for $49.51?
WOW so over the top it’s vulgar
If anyone has this kind of money do something positive with it
This meal is not only unhealthy it has me reaching for Tums
~R~
If anyone has this kind of money do something positive with it
This meal is not only unhealthy it has me reaching for Tums
~R~
I know it wasn't your point but "Swedish Moose Cheese" made me laugh.
If the Old Homestead restaurant is not part of the 1% mentality, they might spent their excess profits on some humanitarian venture. Greed tends to rule, though. Me, me, me. R.
Here's an interesting thought: To more than 30% of the world's people, there is no real difference between how rich you are and how rich those who can afford that meal are. The $49.95 (plus taxes and tip) that you'd happily spend on a meal for two, is the equivalent of their entire YEARLY income. Can you imagine what kind of life they have?
.
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I don't even know what to say about this. It gives me the same feeling I get when I see the Needless Markup Christmas catalog's gift-of-the-year item -- you know, diamond studded bras, solid gold toilet seats and the like. It makes me want to puke, honestly. Those chefs really had to go out of their ways to find ingredients expensive enough to be consumed in one meal. Dreadful.
Lezlie
Lezlie
One of the things I noticed, apart form the expense of some people's gluttonous ways, is that the booze being offered was often way more costly than the foods it was meant to enhance the flavor of. Well, except the truffles, maybe, depending of course upon where they were harvested and who distributes them.
Oh, and the silly moose cheese--the price of which one hates to surmise any total for.
(Who in their right mind would ever attempt to milk a moose in the first place??? Fierce creatures, meese. Sheesh)
Can't help but wonder what the carbon footprints of said feat would entail....
Just partook of a You Tube video a little bit ago which has a good ending. It's about 12 minutes in length, and seems too simple at first. Its final point, though, made the viewing worth it to me.
How Class Works by Richard Wolff is its YT title.
Rated
Oh, and the silly moose cheese--the price of which one hates to surmise any total for.
(Who in their right mind would ever attempt to milk a moose in the first place??? Fierce creatures, meese. Sheesh)
Can't help but wonder what the carbon footprints of said feat would entail....
Just partook of a You Tube video a little bit ago which has a good ending. It's about 12 minutes in length, and seems too simple at first. Its final point, though, made the viewing worth it to me.
How Class Works by Richard Wolff is its YT title.
Rated
ps my sister worked a soup kitchen where previous years they had 100 people this year was six hundred needy and hungry folks.
Found a short blurb at YouTube about it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGPV0-sHwIw
Nothing else so far, though. hadn't heard about it before today, thanks to you, lib.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGPV0-sHwIw
Nothing else so far, though. hadn't heard about it before today, thanks to you, lib.
Sorry, I guess I am the odd man out, I am not horrified.
So what if people with more money than sense spend ridiculous amounts on Thanksgiving?
How do any of us know what they do with the rest of their cash?
It's *their* cash - if they want to be stupid with it, it's their right, as it is for every one of us.
Do you want someone telling you what to do with your money?
I do not.
That said, it is sad anyone feels the need to spend so ridiculously on a meal.....but it's no one's business if they do, personally.
...and I routinely feed at least 10 people on Thanksgiving and have no idea how anyone thinks $50. feeds 10 people for that meal.
Would love to know what that food is and where they buy it.
...and no, I do not have relatives or know anyone who could afford such nonsense - or want to.
...and yes, sure it would be great if they used their money in more generous ways, but again, last I looked, it's not anyone's business how people spend their money,
rich or poor or middle class.
Plenty of people in all camps make stupid decisions.
So what if people with more money than sense spend ridiculous amounts on Thanksgiving?
How do any of us know what they do with the rest of their cash?
It's *their* cash - if they want to be stupid with it, it's their right, as it is for every one of us.
Do you want someone telling you what to do with your money?
I do not.
That said, it is sad anyone feels the need to spend so ridiculously on a meal.....but it's no one's business if they do, personally.
...and I routinely feed at least 10 people on Thanksgiving and have no idea how anyone thinks $50. feeds 10 people for that meal.
Would love to know what that food is and where they buy it.
...and no, I do not have relatives or know anyone who could afford such nonsense - or want to.
...and yes, sure it would be great if they used their money in more generous ways, but again, last I looked, it's not anyone's business how people spend their money,
rich or poor or middle class.
Plenty of people in all camps make stupid decisions.
To me, the solution is to not make it voluntary.
Our tax system needs a major overhaul with loopholes gone and a flat proportion of income *for all* that is taxed.
Our tax system needs a major overhaul with loopholes gone and a flat proportion of income *for all* that is taxed.
I would be sick to think about consuming that, even if I won the lotto and had dozens of millions.
This is a prime example of the absurd power money has in our present society. The concept that money owned thereby divorces the owner of any responsibility for the use of the money is a death stroke on the power of a decent society to perform its function to work to the benefit of all members. Ownership itself is a function of society and it does not confer universal freedom to misuse that power.There are limits to the power of a gun owner and money, as is obvious today, can kill just as easily as a gun. A society deluded that the power of money is freedom to destroy the basis of a decent society is a society that will destroy itself, as is obvious from current events. That is the crux of our present intolerable problems.
Does that include a gratuity for the dishwashers in the back who are working for less than minimum wage?
Reminds me of obscene indulgence by the Roman aristocracy just before the Roman empire collapsed. My understanding is that Manhattan will disappear as sea levels continue to rise - unless they get the Dutch to build a dyke for them. I guess climate change has its advantages.
rita, thanks for commenting. I agree. You know when the financial crash happened in 2008 it was said that Tiffany sales increased for everything under $200 and also for the stratospheric prices you and I couldn't begin to wrap our heads or wallets around. That gap in between $200 and stratospheric began to grow and grow, showing a true Grand Canyon of economic disparity in American.
jan, thanks for commenting. You know the likker sounds like that cost the most. And is that real gold being sprinkled on the dessert? WTF???
z -- I enjoyed your meals post! great reminder to us all. Where is the conscience of Congress cutting these programs but anything goes for war, for Wall Street bailouts, for Israel, etc. I have occasional nightmares similar.
poeTESS, that made me blink a few times, myself. $5 a head? Seriously? Not in NYC I'm thinking!
MCS, yes, I am with you. Kind of an avalanche for the palette.
Swedish Moose Cheese. AKA, I've had goat cheese. Points for that?
Lyle, I went to this restaurant years and years ago. I remember the meal was expensive but yummy, comfort food. Not crazy expensive, just pricey. I am confused as to their push to garner publicity like this. Sure people have the right to spend their own money and restaurants have the right to cater to anyone, but the entire story creeped me out. Any publicity is good publicity? Or you can brag you went to the OH just like the elite? I know certain restaurants in NYC have that cachet for the rich, no commoners are welcome. And the really really serious ones us commoners don't even know the names of them. I'm thinking once again of that 24 carat gold flakes on my bourbon-soaked poached pears. WTF?
best, libby
jan, thanks for commenting. You know the likker sounds like that cost the most. And is that real gold being sprinkled on the dessert? WTF???
z -- I enjoyed your meals post! great reminder to us all. Where is the conscience of Congress cutting these programs but anything goes for war, for Wall Street bailouts, for Israel, etc. I have occasional nightmares similar.
poeTESS, that made me blink a few times, myself. $5 a head? Seriously? Not in NYC I'm thinking!
MCS, yes, I am with you. Kind of an avalanche for the palette.
Swedish Moose Cheese. AKA, I've had goat cheese. Points for that?
Lyle, I went to this restaurant years and years ago. I remember the meal was expensive but yummy, comfort food. Not crazy expensive, just pricey. I am confused as to their push to garner publicity like this. Sure people have the right to spend their own money and restaurants have the right to cater to anyone, but the entire story creeped me out. Any publicity is good publicity? Or you can brag you went to the OH just like the elite? I know certain restaurants in NYC have that cachet for the rich, no commoners are welcome. And the really really serious ones us commoners don't even know the names of them. I'm thinking once again of that 24 carat gold flakes on my bourbon-soaked poached pears. WTF?
best, libby
sky, the obscene levels of wealth of that .01% especially. Predatory crony capitalism! In the monopoly game of life, the monopolies are out of control. Marvin Gardens and Park Place, etc. rule. Atlantic and Baltic Avenue types, etc., NO HOME OR JOB FOR YOU!!!! Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
Lezlie, so happy to see you back gracing the open salon campus!!! I don't even get close to those catalogues let alone that kind of product. Well, maybe wandering the halls of Caesar's or some big casino palace in LV which is that zooey and eclectic. Not even window shopping at Tiffany's in NYC! I agree with you that they were stretching hard to put together that menu! I repeat, WTF re those 24 carat gold flakes on the dessert? That is just nuts. What does ingesting gold do to the body?
best, libby
Lezlie, so happy to see you back gracing the open salon campus!!! I don't even get close to those catalogues let alone that kind of product. Well, maybe wandering the halls of Caesar's or some big casino palace in LV which is that zooey and eclectic. Not even window shopping at Tiffany's in NYC! I agree with you that they were stretching hard to put together that menu! I repeat, WTF re those 24 carat gold flakes on the dessert? That is just nuts. What does ingesting gold do to the body?
best, libby
PW!!! thanks for that youtube link. Old Homestead Steakhouse is apparently the full name. Yes, the booze seems to be where the serious $$$ is in that meal. The most expensive bottle of wine in the place? Really? You have me giggling about the moose milking. TMI!!! Hah!!! We have entered the realm of Versailles. The let them eat cake degree of decadence. Thanks for the YT suggestion. Will check out. best, libby xxx
rita, wow. I am not surprised. Did they have to turn those people away or did they manage to send out for more provisions for some -- how could they cover the full 600 at last minute??? Sending away 500 because you can accommodate only 100??? How heartbreaking and demoralizing for the homeless centers and for their escalating numbers of clients, including children, to be told they cannot be accommodated!!!
best, libby
best, libby
Hey, JT! No, I don't want people forcing me as to how to spend my money. They do have the right to spend it. I do object to the obscene levels of wealth that have been sucked to them from the rest of us due to predatory crony capitalism. Yes, that estimate for a dinner for 10 shocked me. And your point is well taken, that all the classes make bad choices of how to spend their money.
zumalicious -- yes, those 9 courses sound like a lot to digest! Did I mention those gold flakes? Ick.
Jan, thanks for the return eloquence once again! Sigh.
Daniel, that is a great comment!! What was the gratuity for that $35,000 dinner combo package? Hah!!! They say that it is not the rich who are the generous tippers. It is the lower classes on average.
Actually, how much are the rich actually spending these days or are they super-hoarding that money they have gamed and bribed and cronied their ways to get. Lobbyists spend lots of money for the 1% but the bang they get for those lobbying bucks is astronomical! best, libby
zumalicious -- yes, those 9 courses sound like a lot to digest! Did I mention those gold flakes? Ick.
Jan, thanks for the return eloquence once again! Sigh.
Daniel, that is a great comment!! What was the gratuity for that $35,000 dinner combo package? Hah!!! They say that it is not the rich who are the generous tippers. It is the lower classes on average.
Actually, how much are the rich actually spending these days or are they super-hoarding that money they have gamed and bribed and cronied their ways to get. Lobbyists spend lots of money for the 1% but the bang they get for those lobbying bucks is astronomical! best, libby
Stuart, absolutely re the obscene decadence of the Roman empire. Though careful wishing those rising tides on all of us New Yorkers. The bottom of the ladder will be washed out first.
best, libby
best, libby
As a human being I can possibly speculate about humanity and find , perhaps, equivalents in other living things. All living things perceive and consolidate partial perceptions that they perceive as significant and consolidate them into workable patterns that they assume to be reality. Reality itself is too chock full of perceptive material for limited minds, such as we possess, to swallow and differentiate in totality. So, as with all other creatures, we grab bits that seem to form important patterns and use those bits to construct our limited reality which is something we can handle. In other words, we work with symbols rather than actuality. These symbols are human inventions, are, at best, workable handles on the real unknown and perhaps, unknowable, which is actuality. Money is one of those symbols and humans delightedly bask in its wonder for the controls is exerts on our relationships. These fantastically priced meals are basically a communication device for the super rich to cry out to the rest of civilization which is struggling to construct a decent life out of the pitiable fragments of power the controllers allow through minimal monetary disbursement. That outrageous cry is a loud and clear message of total contempt for ordinary people who must struggle to live. It is the utmost in snotty communication. It is theater.
Pigeon as the starter? And they didn't even use Centennial in the cranberries? What a rip-off!
libby, for you it's the $35,000 dinner and for me it was the $25,000 “banquette” table. I posted about this in October 2013 and it's a clear violation of the greatest good for the greatest number principle. How you minimize such excesses is another question. It reminds me of a recent time in NYC where I saw one nightclub boasting about being the home of the $10,000 cocktail. You must have a lot of opportunity to note such conspicuous consumption.
Jan is right, money has as much power to kill as a gun. There are people who will die from lack of money for basics here in the US. There are those who will pay that much for a meal but don't place any value on humans and expect them to labor for subsistence wages.
Rated while shaking my head.
Rated while shaking my head.
There are an extraordinary number of qualitative data points that Wall Street is putting in the most critical top in its history. The level of obscenity is far more extreme than 1929, 2008 or anywhere in between. New York real estate, Wall Street pay, Wall Street financial frauds in every market imaginable, the traffic jams in the Hamptons, stupid levels of consumerism, prostitution and drug use, the level of bribery and extortion of our government, the incredible level of expenditures of art, the rampant and criminal misuse of the public trust, the massive $24 trillion bailout, the endless free money they are afforded from the racket we call the Fed and on and on and on. The piggery of Wall Street pigmen is without precedence. Your post is another qualitative data point of the Godless, asinine behavior of a ruling class of renter capitalist plutocrats.
Karma is a bitch.
Karma is a bitch.
Btw, I thought you might enjoy the parallel, Libby. I remarked of this back in 2007. The two data points are very similar.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/11/07/us-dessert-idUSN0753679220071107
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/11/07/us-dessert-idUSN0753679220071107
first off the meal itself is sickening - overly heavy and gross. there's not one course in that meal I'd want. individual elements, sure. truffles are fantastic. couvosier, fantastic, tuffles with it - I don't know because truffles have such a unique, earthy and stupendous flavor, why fuck with them? but I'll tell you why they fuck with them, because soaking them in uberexpensive couvosier makes them even more costly.
this meal is about eating money, not food. I mean really........caviar in my yams? go fuck yourself you douchebag!
I wonder if any of the staff spit in any of the dishes. probably not because service people work ridiculously hard, make not a hell of a lot of money, need their jobs and no one's taking anything for granted. but I know I would have wanted to. and knowing me...........
I'll tell you, these are disgusting times particularly, because unlike marie antoinette and louis XIV (I think), they were raised to believed they were entitled to live like that and did not need or care to recognize the hardships of the people who paid for their ridiculously opulent lifestyle. they paid the price in return.
we always read about these excesses but truthfully, will anyone make anyone regret theirs?
for some reason I am thinking of madam lafarge.
this meal is about eating money, not food. I mean really........caviar in my yams? go fuck yourself you douchebag!
I wonder if any of the staff spit in any of the dishes. probably not because service people work ridiculously hard, make not a hell of a lot of money, need their jobs and no one's taking anything for granted. but I know I would have wanted to. and knowing me...........
I'll tell you, these are disgusting times particularly, because unlike marie antoinette and louis XIV (I think), they were raised to believed they were entitled to live like that and did not need or care to recognize the hardships of the people who paid for their ridiculously opulent lifestyle. they paid the price in return.
we always read about these excesses but truthfully, will anyone make anyone regret theirs?
for some reason I am thinking of madam lafarge.
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