Food lovers don't shy away from visiting new places and trying new delicacies. In fact, they're even ready to spend a fortune on a fine dining experience to surprise their palette.

Igor Starkov/Pexels | Food lovers don't shy away from spending a fortune on a fine dining experience, but some dishes are just too highly-priced

If you too belong to this category of people and love to splurge on a bowl of Bird Nest soup or a spoonful of Beluga Caviar, you're at the right place. In this post, we're going to list some of the world's most expensive food items to date. So are you ready for an enriching experience?

#1 - Iberico Ham

Sold as high as $4,500 per leg, Iberico ham comes from Black Iberian Pigs who enjoy a zen life on Dehesa in the Iberian Peninsula. These pigs follow a strict acorn-only diet which gives their meat a sweet, nutty taste, that is unlike any other ham. Plus, since their meat is cured for 36 months, it has a unique aroma and an unimaginable tenderness any meat lover would die for. Another thing that distinguishes Iberico ham from the crowd is the black label that proclaims that the meat was extracted from 100% pure Black Iberian Pig. 

Tim Graham/Getty Images | Sold as high as $4,500 per leg, Iberico ham comes from Black Iberian Pigs who enjoy a zen life on Dehesa in the Iberian Peninsula

#2 - Saffron

Found in several middle eastern dishes, these bright red threads cost $5000 per pound. They're not only used for decorating food items but are also added to curries and rice to enhance their taste. The thing that makes these thread-like spices so expensive is that they grow in fewer quantities and only during a specific time of the year. Around two football pitches covered in their crocuses yield merely one kilogram of this spice. Plus, the crocuses flower only for a week or two every season, with each of them containing just three stigmas that must be handled with extreme care while harvesting.

#3 - Pule Cheese

Pule cheese is rare in quantity. It's derived from 130 endangered Balkan Donkeys kept at The Zasavica Special Nature Reserve in Serbia. This reserve is the only place that turns the Balkan Donkeys' milk into cheese by hand-milking them thrice per day. So you can imagine just how rare this cheese really is. Plus, one kilogram of Pule cheese requires 25 liters of milk, which justifies it’s outrageous price tag somewhat.

Marko Djurica/Atlas Obscura | Pule cheese is derived from 130 endangered Balkan Donkeys kept at The Zasavica Special Nature Reserve in Serbia

Takeaway

There are many more items that can cost you all your savings, but for what it's worth, all of them will be the perfect treat for your taste buds. Each and every one of them is sufficient to give your palette a uniquely flavorful experience. So which ones are you going to try?