When we think of foreign foods, some cuisines are considered high end and others are considered affordable — or even cheap. Krishnendu Ray, the chair of the Nutrition and Food Studies department at New York University, used Zagat data to look at how the price of different cuisines has changed over time in New York.
"The prestige and the price of a meal in a Japanese restaurant was going up dramatically in the 1990s," he said. In 1986, Japanese food ranked 6th in average price of a meal at a Zagat-rated restaurant. In 2014, it jumped to 2nd behind French food.
Meanwhile, Mexican and Chinese food remain among the cheapest in Zagat-rated restaurants. In 2010, the average price of a French meal for one person was $47.81, while the average price of a Tex-Mex meal was $22.00.
Ray said that's partly because there are many more recent immigrants from China and Mexico than from France and Japan.
“If you have a group of poor immigrants coming to the country, their food can become popular, but it’s very hard to get prestige. Because prestige is related to class hierarchy. We generally don’t give prestige to poor people’s culture," he said.
Ray predicted that if there is a slow-down in working-class immigration from countries like India and China because of strong economies in those countries, those cuisines may gain prestige in America.
Rank by average price of meal, Zagat New York City
| Type of Restaurant | Price Rank in 1986 | Price Rank in 2014 |
|---|---|---|
| French | 1 | 1 |
| Japanese | 6 | 2 |
| American | 5 | 3 |
| Continental | 3 | 4 |
| Italian | 2 | 5 |
| Spanish | 7 | 6 |
| Greek | 12 | 7 |
| Korean | 13 | 8 |
| Indian | 8 | 10 |
| Mexican | 9 | 11 |
| Southern | 4 | 12 |
| Chinese | 11 | 13 |
| Vietnamese | 10 | 14 |
| Thai | 14 | 15 |
Source: Krishnendu Ray's analysis of Zagat NYC. Creole and Cajun cuisine have erratic definitions in Zagat and were left out of this comparison.
Our taste may also be connected to our understanding of race. Most of the expensive cuisines are from ethnicities we now consider white — French, New American, Italian.
"At the bottom of the cluster, [there's] African American, Mexican American, Hispanic/Latino," Ray said. "It is the most difficult to acquire prestige and not be turned into a mere token in that domain. Our taste is probably still more racialized than we are willing to acknowledge."
The trends of the high-end restaurant world also matter. Ray said the center of haute cuisine has shifted from France to Spain, which has led to more expensive Spanish restaurants in New York City.
Krishnendu Ray's new book is The Ethnic Restauranteur. He was also interviewed for the Sporkful podcast's series, Other People's Food.