Gold Leaf And Pork Liver On A Costco Hotdog Is Sending Reddit Into A Tailspin
By now, we've all seen or heard of Costco's $1.50 hot dog meal, which has maintained its staggeringly low price since the company's early days in the mid-'80s. The meal has become the stuff of legends in recent years as inflation and economic insecurity have continued to raise the prices of fast food chains across the country, paired with the general rise in the cost of living. While hot dogs can be customized in many different ways, one shopper's experimentation flies directly against the budget-friendly spirit of the Costco deal.
One Reddit user has the social media platform and fellow shoppers in an uproar, thanks to the way they blinged out their quarter-pound all-beef frank. In the post, the Redditor combined the $1.50 hot dog with 24-karat edible gold leaf paper and also pork liver pâté. The combination had many fellow Redditors confused on why somebody would invest in such a strange creation. One person wrote, "You lost me at pork liver pâté and gold leaf." Meanwhile, another questioned, "Why you put cat food and tin foil on your glizzy?" While the Reddit user tried to ritz up their hot dog, many are wondering how much the "upgrade" cost.
How much would this bizarre concoction cost?
The Reddit post displays a Costco hot dog flanked by the contents of the pork liver pâté, topped with a heaping blanket of edible gold leaf paper, which looks very similar to a thin piece of shiny aluminum foil. The cost of both the pork liver and the gold leaf can vary wildly depending on a number of factors, but most estimates ring in at around $5 per 4.5 oz can of the savory spread, while the 24-karat edible gold leaf can ring in somewhere between $15 to $25. That's on the low end of the price spectrum for edible gold, which can cost over $1,000.
This effectively takes the meal from its original $1.50 price tag to a whopping $30+ per serving, directly affronting Costco's potentially violent co-founder's wishes. Costco founder Jim Sinegal once threatened the company's CEO Craig Jelinek with bodily harm if he ever raised the price of the $1.50 deal. As such, Sinegal probably wouldn't be a fan of the 24-karat encrusted hot dog.
Other shoppers agreed, with one writing, "What, no caviar?" One humorous exchange got right into the heart of the inexpensive meal deal, with a Redditor positing the question "Still $1.50?" and garnering the response from another user, "$2.50."