Yes, it's the elevation of the soul of an otherwise ordinary object or substance. Now when a restaurant charges $100 for a "salad" consisting of a couple of "artfully" placed lettuce leaves topped by one knotted chive, it has profaned the entire concept.
No good spirit in that sort of scam.
Well, in that post I was speaking of language in translation, not the ‘art of food’, bastardized or not.
But to your point: the buyer colludes; so is anyone really guilty, or is it just a game between willing participants?
-JT