A turkey-and-cheese sandwich, without the bread. A few slices of turkey, cheese, vegetables, and sauce, wrapped in a lettuce leaf. Price: $19.

We are not talking about a complicated dish, a rare ingredient freshly delivered from a small farm in southern France, or a cooking technique that takes hours of work. We are, quite literally, talking about a sandwich in which the bread has been replaced with lettuce.

But this is not just any sandwich. It is a sandwich from “Em Sherif”. And that is where the story begins.

It is nothing new for the restaurant to take extremely simple dishes, some deeply rooted in Lebanese home cooking, and serve them in a luxury setting at prices far removed from their original cost. From moghrabieh to pasta with yogurt, all the way to a potato sandwich, the formula is much the same: food that was once ordinary, widespread, or simply something you would eat at home enters a different space, is presented differently, and carries a different commercial name. Suddenly, it becomes a luxury product.

The debate could be dismissed with a familiar Lebanese saying: “No one forces you to buy it.” And that is true. No one stands at the door of “Em Sherif” forcing customers to pay $19 for a turkey-and-lettuce sandwich. The price is clearly listed; customers see it, order it, and pay willingly.

But that is not the end of the discussion. Perhaps it is only the beginning.

Because the question is not only: Why would a restaurant sell a sandwich like this at such a price? It is also: Why do people want to buy it?

What Are We Buying When We Buy Food?

The restaurant economy has never been based solely on the cost of ingredients. We are not simply paying for the potatoes, meat, lettuce, and tomatoes. We are paying for rent, staff salaries, service, décor, location, experience, the name, and the reputation. Any restaurant has the right to set whatever prices it chooses, just as customers have the right to decide whether they are willing to pay them.

But at a certain point, the gap between the material value of a product and its price becomes so wide that the price itself becomes part of the product. You are not just buying the sandwich. You are buying the name behind it and, perhaps more importantly, the ability to pay $19 for it. That is a crucial distinction.

Luxury goods have always operated this way. The value of a handbag is not in the leather alone; the value of a watch is not simply in its ability to tell time, and the value of a luxury car is not merely in its ability to take you from one place to another. The name adds symbolic value, and sometimes that value matters more than the product itself.

What is interesting, however, is that the same logic has now reached the most ordinary and simple of foods: potatoes, moghrabieh, pasta with yogurt, and a turkey sandwich. Luxury is no longer tied to rarity. Instead, it becomes tied to the ability to reprice the ordinary.

And there is an even greater paradox in turning simple foods into luxury products.

Many of these dishes were originally born out of a logic that is the exact opposite of luxury: accessible ingredients, home recipes, and ways of feeding a family with whatever was available. A potato sandwich is not some brilliant gastronomic invention. It is potatoes in bread. Pasta with yogurt is not a dish that requires a lengthy explanation from the waiter.

These foods are part of the memories of countless households. Then a brand comes along, removes the dish from its original context, repackages it on a nicer plate, in a nicer setting, for an audience that can afford it, and sells it back to them as though it were a discovery.

And this is where the question also becomes one of class. What one person eats because it is cheap and accessible, another may eat because it has become an “experience.” The first eats a potato sandwich because it is simply a potato sandwich. The second can afford to pay several times its price to eat the version that carries the right name. 

When Consumption Becomes a Performance

This contradiction becomes even more glaring in Lebanon. This country has been living through years of economic and financial collapse whose consequences are far from over, with its crises further compounded by war, displacement, and destruction. In this context, a $19 turkey-and-lettuce sandwich does not seem like merely an overpriced meal. For many, that amount could represent a significant part of their food budget, while for others it could be spent on a single, remarkably simple meal.

The problem is not that some people have money and choose to spend it, nor is it about demanding that people feel guilty every time they go to a restaurant. The problem begins when consumption itself becomes a performance.

In the age of social media, we no longer always buy food simply because we want to eat it. Sometimes, we buy it because we want others to see that we bought it.

The restaurant’s name becomes part of the meal, the photo becomes part of its value, and the high price itself becomes a marker of status and the ability to pay. In that sense, the $19 sandwich may not be desirable despite its simplicity, but precisely because of it: it can be photographed, commented on, and turned into a source of controversy, and posting it says as much about the person who bought it as it does about the food itself.

In a country marked by such extreme inequality, the scene becomes even harsher: some people calculate the cost of what they are going to eat, while others sometimes buy food precisely to show that they do not need to calculate it.

This Is Not an Attack on the Restaurant

It would be very easy to turn this story into an attack on the restaurant. But that would be an incomplete critique. “Em Sherif” is, ultimately, a business that knows its audience and has built a successful, powerful, and exportable brand. And if hundreds of people are willing to buy a product at the listed price, then by logic, that price has succeeded. The problem, if we want to call it that, does not lie solely with the seller.

It lies with both sides: the seller, who discovered that the simplest things can be turned into luxury products simply by putting a name on them, and the buyer, who does not merely accept the equation but gives it meaning.

Because a brand cannot decide on its own that a lettuce sandwich is worth $19, it can put that number on the menu, but the value only becomes real when someone orders it and pays for it.

This is where the consumer becomes a partner in creating the price. Sometimes, the high price itself becomes the reason the product is desirable. If the exact same sandwich were sold for five dollars at a small shop, perhaps no one would photograph it, pay attention to it, or consider it worth talking about.

The $19 price tag is not a flaw in the product. It is part of its appeal.

From the Economy of Triviality to the Economy of the Ordinary

In “The Economy of Triviality,” the question was about the world of influencers who turned marriage, divorce, personal feuds, children, and even violence into content that could be sold. But influencers alone cannot be held responsible for this economy. There is always someone on the other side of the screen watching, sharing, commenting, and giving that content its commercial value. A market needs two sides. The same logic appears here in a different form.

Private life can be turned into a commodity if someone wants to consume it. And a lettuce leaf can be turned into the wrapper of a $19 sandwich if someone wants to buy it.

That may be why mocking the price isn’t enough. The real question is not how a restaurant dared to charge that much. The more unsettling question is: How did we reach a point where paying an inflated price for something utterly ordinary became part of the experience we seek?

In the economy of triviality, things do not necessarily become more valuable because they have become better. Sometimes, their value rises because we have collectively agreed to treat them as though they have.

The seller sets the price.
The buyer pays.
Then each looks at the other, convinced they came out ahead.

Perhaps they are both right.

And that is precisely the problem.