Content-Type: text/shitpost

I dreamt I was in a restaurant. On the menu, there was a little note attached to the second-from-last item, explaining that what would be served was only a picture of the actual dish. (The listed price was $24, roughly in line with the other dishes.)

In the dream I was completely perplexed. Who would order such a thing? But when I woke up it was easy to think of an answer. Suppose that it's traditional to welcome an honored guest by serving a certain rare and expensive dish, let's say baked Alaska. This demonstrates to the guest that you take them seriously, and also demonstrates to them (and to your associates) that you're wealthy and powerful enough to command the traditional dish.

Now suppose that baked Alaska is out of season or otherwise unavailable. No problem. You symbolically serve them the traditiona l dish, and if it costs just as much, or more, then so much the better, because the dessert itself was never the point.