From a guest author : It’s just another Paris Hilton Instagram post showing the room service meal she ordered during her Shanghai sojourn last November. “I love Chinese food,” she commented. But there’s one problem, except for the fried rice, the dishes were hardly Chinese: panini, creamy soup, spaghetti, and some other general meals. I wouldn’t fault her though, and the public seems to understand her little culinary mishap. After all, the Paris Hiltons amidst us are more at home eating fancy meals than being confronted by an unassuming panini. Well then, let’s give Paris Hilton one fancy menu.

I thought to put together a set of meals for one day in this infographic, featuring the most expensive foods in the world. These foods are unabashedly opulent, but before you get upset, many of these items were created for fundraising programs (like an auction). Okay, some are truly lavish beyond reason. To put their prices in perspective, our total bill by dinner’s end easily matches the annual income of an average American household, whose weekly meal budget is estimated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be somewhere from $130 to $250 for a family of four.

There’s another reason why a dish can be very expensive: the chef sprinkled some diamonds, luxury pearls, or gold as a side attraction, such as the spoon, plate, goblet, or a decor. I thought it’s cheating. You can always make anything the most expensive by throwing in some diamonds, the most expensive toilet for instance.

Still, some dishes are easy to imagine why they’re expensive: the ingredients are either rare or take a lot of time and effort to source. What makes Wagyu beef literally a cut above the rest? The cow where the beef comes from is massaged and fed on beer every single day of its short bovine life. Saffron, a most prized spice, requires 75,000 filaments to make a pound!

We have more surprises in this day’s menu, from an ice cream whose price leaves you deathly cold, to a putrid cake slice that the ultra rich had craved to buy.