10,000
On Saturday, one of my most belovedly strange students brought a cooler full of matsutake for his teachers. Matsutake is a mushroom that only the Japanese people eat; the rest of the world would throw it away, except for the fact that they know they can charge the Japanese like crazy for it. Each mushroom is worth about 10,000 yen--roughly $100. Each one smells like old, used socks. And almost all Japanese people love the taste (which becomes much milder than the smell). Late summer into autumn is the only time you can get them.
It's funny, because I was just talking with a very high-level student about matsutake that very day that the cooler showed up. I said I would try it someday, despite the expense. I followed through unbelievably quickly.
I was just going to fry up the mushroom and mix it with my chat-kat organic rice, but, Hiroko invited me over to her parents' home, and, well, what could make a better first-meeting present than a 10,000-yen, sock-smelling mushroom?