Caviar

Caviar is fish eggs that have been salted to preserve them.

Most agree that they are definitely an acquired taste, though the best Caviar won't taste fishy or salty at all.

Salt both preserves the fish eggs, and cures them, giving them their somewhat firm texture. The top grades such as Beluga, Osetra and Sevruga are not salty; lower grades are very salty.

Holding back on the salt shortens the storage life, but adds to its desirability. The best has only from 2 up to 5% of its weight in salt added. This is called in Russian "malossol", meaning "little salt."

It may be best to think of two categories as Caviar: European sturgeon, and non-European sturgeon.

Unless otherwise specified, Caviar means eggs from a sturgeon fish. In fact, it's the law in the United States and France, whenever the word Caviar is used by itself. If from another fish, the name of that fish must be used as a descriptor.

Individual fish eggs in the Caviar are referred to as "grains" or "berries"; you may also see Caviar as a whole referred to as "roe."

To produce Caviar, sturgeon are caught in nets and hauled in. The fish are stunned by hitting them on the head so they are passive. Then, just before slaughter which may be at sea or on land, the fish are hit on the head again.

The belly is slit open, and the egg sack removed. The Russians remove it while still at sea; Iranians do it back on shore, The eggs are sieved to grade them by size, and to remove membrane from the roe sack, then rinsed with water, then classified and salted. Borax (Na2B407.10H20 ) is then added to sweeten and soften the eggs. It is not added to caviar destined for North American export, as the use of Borax is illegal there in food. With Borax in it, it can only be served in embassies in North America. Consequently, to compensate, most caviar exported to North America has to have more salt in it.

The eggs are then drained of any liquid that has come off them, then packed in glass jars, or tins. The jars can be pasteurized to increase shelf-life, but pasteurization changes the flavour.

There's a numeric grading system for Beluga caviar. 000 indicates lightest colour, 00 is medium, 0 is dark.

The eggs break down if frozen, and spoil at temperatures above 45 F (7 C.) Some Caviar, though, is sold frozen: it's not meant to be served on its own, but rather as a garnish for dishes.

Beluga Caviar

Caviar from Beluga sturgeon is considered the undisputed best. A portion of it in the Bar Vendome at the Ritz Hotel in Paris cost £500 (€700) in 2007 [1]. In 2005, a pound (450g) of it sold for around $3,000 US in America.

Beluga Caviar has the largest grains of all. The egg colour ranges from very black to dark grey. The membrane on the egg is very soft, and inside it is creamy, with a subtle taste of walnut.

Beluga fish can weigh up to 1,800 pounds (815 kg), be up to 30 feet (9 metres long), and live up to 100 years. A female starts producing eggs when 20 years old, and can yield up to 200 pounds (90 kg) of roe (though because of the harvesting method which requires killing the fish, it is of course a one-time shot.)

Beluga live mainly in the Caspian Sea, but also in the Azov, Adriatic and Black Seas, and in the Danube and Dnepr rivers.

Many people boycott Beluga now because it was declared an endangered species in 1996 by The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Dam construction has cut off most of their spawning locations.

Two-thirds of the world's supply of Beluga Caviar is sold to the United States. Eighty percent of that is purchased between November and New Year's Day.

A complete ban on the import of Caspian Sea Beluga caviar into the United States was imposed from 2005 to 2007, until producers could demonstrate that they had a management plan for the species. In 2007, import of 96 tons of Beluga caviar (representing 85% of 2005 levels) was allowed in.

Volga Sterlet (Acipenser ruthenus) Caviar

These fish are the smallest of all sturgeon. Their habitat is the Volga River.

Owing to pollution, the species is practically extinct now. But even before stocks were depleted, their Caviar was still so expensive that practically only the Tsars could afford it.

Their eggs are golden.

Osetrova Caviar (aka Osetrina Caviar)

This caviar comes from the fish know as Ossetra Sturgeon, Osyetr Sturgeon, Black Osyetr, or Acipenser gueldenstaedtii.

This sturgeon is a smaller fish than Beluga; it weighs about 700 pounds (320 kg.)

The Caviar is considered very good. The eggs are smaller, with a somewhat nutty taste, and their colour ranges from golden to light-brown.

Sometimes caviar from the Persian sturgeon (Acipenser persicus) is also called Ossetra.

Sevryuga Caviar

This Caviar comes from the smallest of all sturgeon. The fish is called sevryuga, chivrouga, starry sturgeon, stellate sturgeon and Acipenser stellatus.

The fish is caught using nets in the Azov, Black and Caspian seas. It can grow up to 7 feet (2 metres) long, and weigh up to 200 pounds (90 kg.)

The fish's dark-grey eggs are the smallest of all sturgeon eggs. The Caviar can seem saltier, but this is because the eggs are smaller, with less surface area, and so more easily absorb more salt to their centre.

Payusnaya Caviar (aka Pressed Caviar)

This is damaged eggs that have been pressed into a strong tasting paste. It has a better shelf-life and is less expensive than whole Caviar.

It is popular in Russia and in Greece, but less popular in the West.

Salmon Caviar

The colour of fish eggs from salmon ranges from deep orange to pale red. It is served on black breads, often with chopped onion and lemon juice.

Some say it shouldn't be called Caviar at all, that it's just fishbait.

Paddlefish Caviar

This is an American caviar being produced from American sturgeon, which live in the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and surrounding waterways.

The fish is called variously paddlefish, spoonbill or shovel-nose cat (Polyodon spathula.) The fish grows from 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 1.8 metres) long; a third of its length is its nose. It has no scales, and lives 20 to 30 years.

The fish eggs are grey to black.

Lumpfish Caviar

This is eggs from lumpfish and whitefish caught in the North Atlantic between January and September. It consists of small, crisp pinkish eggs from the lumpfish, and white eggs from the whitefish. Both are dyed black, red or gold with food-safe vegetable-based colouring.

It is salty, inexpensive, and is also the best-selling caviar in the world owing to being the most affordable.

It is best used as a garnish, rather than served on its own. Still, the colour tends to "bleed" -- if you use it to garnish a dollop of sour cream on a food item, for instance, it will leach its colouring into the surrounding sour cream. To reduce this a bit, before using it in a dish, drain first to remove excess dye.


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[1] Rayner, Gordon. Princess Diana inquest holds court at the Ritz. London: Daily Telegraph. 10 October 2007. As a garnish on hors d'oeuvres, allow 1/2 to 1 oz (15 to 30 g) per person. Served by itself, allow 1 to 2 oz (30 to 60 g) per person.

Caviar can't be cooked, or it just toughens. When used in cooked dishes, it's either used as a garnish, or added at the last minute.

Caviar is traditionally served in crystal over ice, using a spoon made of mother of pearl, though horn spoons are also being sold now. The traditional drink is ice-cold vodka or champagne.

In Russia, it was served with Russian white bread ("Kolache", aka Kalach), sometimes toasted until dry, with unsalted butter.

Purists sniff that lemon, chopped onion and chopped egg should never be served with good grades of caviar.
Jars of both fresh and pasteurized caviar need to be stored between 26.5 F and 32 F (-3 C to 0 C). Fresh can be stored for 2 to 3 weeks before use; pasteurized will keep for 3 to 4 months at that temperature.

Use up opened jars within a week.

The Byzantines were making Caviar by the 1100s.

The French were eating Caviar as a fine delicacy by mid-1500s. It was being produced on the Gironde River in Aquitaine, France in the mid 1700s. But then, the Gironde became polluted and overfished, and dams cut off the spawning grounds for the fish.

It became fashionable again in France after the Russian revolution, when aristocratic Russian refugees brought their taste for it.

Caviar production has been revived on the Gironde through fish farms. In fish farms, females can start producing eggs between 7 and 9 years of age.

Lumpfish Caviar was first made in the 1920s in Germany. It originally came from fish caught by Icelandic fisherman. Expansion of the industry began in the early 1970s. Now half the fish caught are by Icelanders; the other half caught by fishermen from Newfoundland. They harvest the fish eggs, and ship them in brine to countries such as Denmark, France and Germany for processing.

It's a myth that metal affects the taste of Caviar.

You will indeed read that metal can render the taste of Caviar into anything from unsavoury to off-putting and unwelcome. You will indeed see advice that the spoon should be mother of pearl, horn, bone, glass or porcelain, and that even plastic is better. (Some proffer, though, that gold is fine as a metal because gold is "non-reactive.")

Truth to tell, the only interaction that can occur is that Caviar may tarnish silver, and that any taste people blame on metal is instead owing to their having bought cheap Caviar.

Still, no one's going to own up to that, so the myth is incredibly persistent and has become one of the cherished mystiques about Caviar, and everyone parrots it without checking the facts. Though it wouldn't take much footwork if people stopped for a second to connect dots in their minds -- Caviar ships either in metal tins, or in jars with metal lids. And then they take it out and go, oh, I mustn't have it go anywhere near metal.

But who wants to disillusion people? After all, what could be classier than dishing up caviar with a left-over plastic spoon from the Dairy Queen?

The English word "caviar" comes from the Turkish word "khavyah", meaning roe.

The Russian word is "ikra".

In Japanese, the term "Ikura" refers to salted salmon eggs.

Clover, Charles. Beluga caviare banned from US menus to help save the sturgeon. London: Daily Telegraph. 29 September 2005.

Derbyshire, David. Expensive Taste. London: Daily Telegraph. 29 September 2005.

Leeder, Jessica. How one Maritime farm is bringing back an endangered fish – and its caviar. Toronto, Canada: The Globe and Mail. 5 June 2011.

Parker Bowles, Tom. Good eggs: There's still plenty of sustainable caviar - time for a treat. London: Daily Mail. 17 September 2009.

Zuckerman, Laura. Beluga ban boosts domestic caviar farming. Reuters. 17 November 2005.

Also called:

Bottarga, Poutargue

Bottarga, Caviar, Poutargue

Anchovy, Fish, Perch, Pink Fish, Poutine, White Fish