Chocolate or Scotch eggs: stick with the cheap classics if you want a treat

Scotch eggs used to be reliable, now Fortnum will flog you a goose Scotch egg for a tenner.' Photograph: Corbis

Woody Allen was once asked if sex is dirty. Only, he replied, if it's being done right. A similar notion could once be applied to edible treats. Is a treat always expensive? Why yes, the old theory goes, but only if it's being done right. A treat is slippery jewels of caviar eaten off the ball of a friend's hand. It is a well-marbled, long-aged steak from some pampered animal. It is a cascade of fruits de mer, all shy grinning shell and beady eye. It is ceps seared in butter. It is shaved white truffles. It is the freshest of rust-coloured sea urchins, smelling brightly of the shore.

Or at least, in warmer times it might have been. For cold economic winds will continue to blow in 2013 and treating ourselves with smears of caviar and heaps of truffles is trickier than once it was. Few of us can just throw money at the issue. So now we