In early 2021, widespread high inflation reappeared in earnest after decades of hibernation. It began, as theory predicts, in commodities, financial assets, and capital goods, and quickly wound its way into producer and consumer goods, beginning a march upward in the general price level which continues to this day. The apex of the rate of that climb was struck in July 2022, when the headline Consumer Price Index was rising at 9.1 percent year-over-year. Since then, while the prices of headline, core goods and services have continued to spiral north, the rate of their rise has decelerated. But prices remain above the Federal Reserve’s annual target rate. 

While different ages, lifestyles, stations in life, and regions have felt the effects of inflation somewhat differently, it is the impact of rising food prices which have the most noticeable and resonating impact. Basic foodstuffs are only slightly removed from major commodities (grains, livestock, and the like) and require copious amounts of other commodities (oil, gasoline, natural gas) and labor to produce. From fertilizer to tractors to factories and trucking, expansionary monetary policies tend to hit the food supply first. It’s one reason why some of the better inflation metrics are food items themselves: egg prices, Big Macs, and others. 

Food, of course, is not only sustenance. It is an essential conduit of culture and tradition. When the price of food rises as aggressively as has occurred over the past few years, it not only increases the cost of living, but drives a wedge between individuals and their heritage. When surging prices leave individuals unable to afford specialty goods — food, clothing, or other cultural accouterments — or inflation leads to the scarcity of certain items, necessitates their replacement by cheap substitutes, or brings other confounding effects, pernicious money creation extends its ruinous influence.

I have investigated the impact of inflation on food and ceremonial goods in the context of holidays and festivities before: Thanksgiving for the past three years, Christmas, the Super Bowl, Black Friday, and the NYC Pizza Principle. More recently, I’ve tried to explain the devastation faced by the food service industry. With Columbus Day around the corner, another, more nuanced demonstration of the monetary disintermediation of ancestral mores is possible.

At least 17.8 million Americans are of Italian descent, representing roughly six percent of the US population. Italian-Americans rank as the fourth largest European ancestry group in the United States, following those of German, Irish, and English descent. Food associated with Italian culture, from pizza to various pastas to cured meats and sauces, are among the most widespread and firmly established in the United States. And among the countless recipes that constitute Italian cuisine, ten primary ingredients surface with regularity.

1. Olive oil
2. Garlic
3. Tomatoes
4. Basil
5. Parmesan Cheese
6. Mozzarella Cheese
7. Pasta
8. Oregano
9. Balsamic Vinegar
10. Prosciutto

Changes in the prices of these ingredients are likely to impact the affordability of meals that include them. And while it is easy to find Italian recipes which use several or even most of those ingredients, it is (quite) difficult to find recipes containing all ten. Not to worry, though; the R in AIER is alive and quite well. 

Pasta caprese con prosciutto (alt. pasta caprese salad with prosciutto) employs all ten of the marquis ingredients, thus allowing for an index-style assessment of how price changes have affected the final product’s cost and highlighting the inflationary effects on this cultural touchstone. I took a recipe for pasta caprese with prosciutto, and used data from the United States Department of Agriculture, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other sites to determine the price of preparing pasta caprese with prosciutto for 10 people in mid-2019 and mid-2024. 

To assuage the inevitable purists, two recipes have been calculated: one including the costs of pasta and balsamic vinegar made from scratch, and one where the former are purchased off-the-shelf. The results are below.

These costs exclude the 2019 to 2024 increase in the average price of gasoline (from $2.61 per gallon to $3.89 per gallon, an increase of 49.04 percent) or electricity (US CPI Electricity NSA has risen from 217.95 to 283.25, or 30 percent) for travel and preparation, respectively. Because anchoring holiday and seasonal traditions frequently lands upon the retired, elderly, and those on fixed incomes, price increases of this degree pose considerable challenges. 

Pasta prices, which spiked last year in the United States, actually rose to “crisis” levels in Italy. Olive oil prices have leapt globally, and putting together the Feast of the Seven Fishes has been a struggle for several years. Similar effects are occurring far beyond Italian food. 

Food is about more than a meal for many Native Americans, it’s a connection to culture … Jessica Walks First is the executive chef and owner of Chicago-based Ketapanen Kitchen. The catering business specializes in Native American food. “I did a dinner last year in November and the cost of that dinner this year has doubled,” she said. Jessica said it’s important that she cook with authentic ingredients, which she tries to source from Native American farmers on reservations. Prior to the recent rise in food costs, she would have those ingredients, like wild rice and whole corn, shipped to her. But now, she says it’s cheaper to drive hours away to pick it up. “I don’t know how long I can keep it up, but I will do what I need to do to keep my business going during these rising prices and crazy inflation,” Jessica said. In 2022, food costs have risen at a pace not seen since the 1970s. For those who rely on foods to tend their culture, health, and religion, the prices have gone up even more.

The phenomenon is global.

With the price of potatoes in South Africa reaching all-time highs, chips (fried potatoes) — an important staple of the country’s communal lunch culture — are becoming too expensive according to Bloomberg. Chips, either served simply with bread or inside a Kota sandwich (a hollowed out loaf filled with cheese, sausage and ketchup) are often shared among several friends or colleagues for their mid-day meal. As the price of potatoes has nearly doubled in the last year however, many businesses that rely on chips have cut down serving sizes and raised prices — causing South Africans to more frequently eat solo.

Sunday dinners, not uncommon when I was a kid in the ‘70s, are mostly gone. So are New Year’s hog butchering feasts, Easter lamb roasts, Fourth of July picnics with homemade pies and churned ice cream, the Christmas goose, and Thanksgiving oyster stuffing. Some of those are more closely associated with an agricultural era, no doubt. But they were cultural mainstays, and are now long gone even in agrarian [farming] communities.

As purchasing power declines, goods once within reach become unattainable. Budgets and priorities realign. Rising prices shift attention away from preserving traditions or customs and toward the growing challenge of staunching a declining standard of living. Materialism, heightened time preferences, and generational divides first undermine, then replace, the sacred and timeless. After increasing poverty and depleted savings, the cost of inflationary policies becomes a spiritual one. A changed ingredient here, a skipped tradition there, and as prices rise, the invisible cultural losses quietly accumulate — and continue to, long after prices stabilize.