Hollywood braced for Ricky Gervais satires, but hunger activists say gold flakes for dessert are beyond a joke
Hollywood is not known for its displays of modesty, and the world certainly does not look to film stars for lessons in financial restraint. But the opulent, gold-garnished menu concocted for guests at the Golden Globes awards ceremony in Beverly Hills has already prompted some observers to choke.
Joel Berg, of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, has spoken of the irony of giving rich people such extravagant food for free while those in need have to jump through hoops to get help, adding: "I resent that a wealthy society allows its neighbours to face hunger."
Against a backdrop of intensifying food poverty across America, the wisdom is doubtful of serving such principled acting nominees as George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Michael Fassbender a dessert that is literally as difficult to acquire as gold dust.
The pudding, decorated with real gold, is described as "a chocolate delice, almond crunch terrine, garnished with acacia honey, caramel and fresh berries" and sprinkled with edible gold flakes at $135 a gram. The dish was devised over six months by pastry chef Thomas Henzi at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and is being prepared by 40 chefs and 110 kitchen staff.
"There is gold dust on there for the Golden Globes," Henzi has explained, adding it will pair ideally with the Moët & Chandon Grand Vintage 2002 magnums created for the night. The meal will be served to 1,300 guests, including awards presenters Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman and Frieda Pinto.
It is unlikely that the more ethically versed stars who attended a brunch held by Green Carpet Challenge, the environmental group supported by Colin Firth and his wife Livia, will approve of such untrammelled excess.
Food poverty campaigner Berg, speaking to the Observer, said that, while he did not mind wealthy people eating well and enjoys good food himself, in the context of nearly 50 million Americans living in households that are "food insecure", he sees an uncomfortable contrast.
"I don't want to bring the rich down, I want to bring everyone else up," he said. "However, this is an irony that the people who need it least often get free food wherever they go, but we still make it extraordinarily difficult for people to obtain government food benefits."
The rich menu may well also draw the fire of the Globes' contentious host, Ricky Gervais, who returns to the compere's role at the event after shocking guests last year with the ferocity of his jibes. Robert Downey Jr, Johnny Depp and Tim Allen all felt the sting of a British insult in 2011.
Gervais has promised a similar diet of bile this year. Bets place the recently separated couple Russell Brand and Katie Perry at the top of his list, although Madonna and om Cruise are also popular with the bookies. Elton John, nominated for his song for the film Gnomeo & Juliet, is also prepared to be laughed at. "But it's fine with me. I'm British. I can take it," he added.
While the team staging the Globes have a thematic excuse for using gold in their dishes, the choice also reflects a growing appetite for incorporating gold leaf and gold dust in recipes, flying in the face of the harsh economic climate.
Last month Britain produced one of the most expensive cheeses on the festive market by mixing premium white stilton with real edible gold leaf and gold liqueur. The cheese, made by Clawson, sold at £608 a kilo. Harrods Food Hall also took stock of Swarovkski-crystal decorated boxes of 15 handmade, 24-carat gold-flecked chocolate truffles with a price tag of £190.A pudding served this Christmas at a country-house hotel in Cumbria, took the gold-encrusted biscuit, however. Costing £22,000 and shaped like a Fabergé egg glazed with edible gold leaf, it was also decorated with a two-carat diamond and infused with five grams of edible 23-carat gold. It took the record as the world's most expensive dessert from the previous holder, New York's Serendipity Restaurant, where the bill for the contending pudding was only £12,000.
"The idea of gold in food as a display of wealth goes back to the Romans. Caesar used to crush pearls into food to make it more valuable and hide jewellery inside it too," said restaurateur and cookery expert Prue Leith. "Richer people seem to go out less now, but spend more when they do. They have an attachment to brand and labels just like children do with trainers."
This winter in London, despite a chill economic wind, the top end of the restaurant trade has blossomed. Mayfair has seen a series of expensive venues open in the last few weeks. One, run by Russian Arkady Novikov, has three separate restaurants on one huge site. This is despite the fact that government statistics show there were 375 insolvencies in the hospitality and leisure sector in the fourth quarter of last year, more than 80 up on the previous year. These closures have struck the middle market venues hard, while the more exclusive restaurants have remained full. The situation is mirrored in America, although there are more than two million New Yorkers receiving food stamps, and are thought to be thousands more who are eligible to receive them but choose not to, either because they are too proud or they don't want to be fingerprinted, a requirement in New York.
In October the growth in demand for food stamps prompted the TV programme Sesame Street to create a character who comes from a family struggling to have enough food. Showing what the entertainment industry can do in hard times, an hour-long special, Growing Hope Against Hunger, had a muppet called Lily talking about her needs while Elmo and his friends came up with a plan to help her.
The staple defence of Hollywood's glitzy indulgence is that it provides a cheering distraction for an increasingly stretched average audience member. The original notion of Hollywood glamour, after all, came to the fore during the Great Depression, when unemployed masses queued to watch the illusion of plenty on cinema screens. It is an argument that does not wash with groups campaigning against poverty though, and it may not convince Ricky Gervais either.