"caviar" news and stories

Happy National Caviar Day!

Said British actor Noel Coward, "Wit ought to be a glorious treat like caviar; never spread it around like marmelade." Perhaps only rivaled by Champagne in its perceived opulence, caviar was once a cheap resource in the United States due to the abundance of sturgeon and in the late 1800s, and was even served for free in saloons to pique thirst among patrons. However, after the boom nearly rendered the American supply extinct, prices sky-rocketed to their current elevated prices.

Today, sturgeon is still considered the premium source of caviar, which has three main types: osetra, sevruga and beluga. The most prized (read: pricy!) caviar these days comes from the Caspian Sea and is typically imported from Russia, but lumpfish caviar, whitefish caviar and salmon caviar are also prominent. Once reserved for royalty, caviar is typically served untouched, accompanied lemon wedges and toast points as well as by ice vodka or Champagne drinks.

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In Italy, you can get a fresh hot pizza out of a vending machine. In Australia, you can get french fries. And in the spirit of catering to the local market, in Moscow, you can now find vending machines that dole out caviar, LA Weekly reported.

A Russian company has installed 33 vending machines across Moscow, including in the mayor's office, that dispense glass jars and tin cans of red salmon roe (fish eggs), a less-pricey version of the caviar that Russians spread on toast and drink with sparkling wine for special events.

Those looking for the black sturgeon varieties -- such as Beluga, Ossetra, and Sevruga -- won't find it in vending machines, London's Telegraph reported, as the high price tag puts it out of reach of most Russians. Black sturgeon caviar harvesting is limited to about 9 tons a year as many varieties have been hunted to near-extinction.

Salty, creamy, chewy, smoky --a bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese and caviar pretty much fulfills all promises. But, and here's where a little rain falls on the brunch parade, it's a poor choice unless you select your fish with an eye on sustainability.

Salmon and sturgeon are both on the least-sustainable seafood list (they've been overfished), so, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch, an easy-to-use buying guide, choose wild-caught Alaska salmon instead of Atlantic salmon, and caviar (roe) from U.S.-farmed sturgeon, or those that are wild-caught from Oregon and Washington.

A classic combination simply becomes a classic with a conscience.

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Photo: Marco Veringa, Flickr.

Does no-kill caviar sound fishy to you? It doesn't have to.

A pricey indulgence that once required killing the sturgeon from which the eggs were harvested, may now be a sustainable delicacy. According to an article in Thursday's Independent, Mottra, a new caviar producer, has come up with a way to harvest the eggs without killing the fish: "The eggs are massaged out of each sturgeon through an incision in its lower abdomen." The company farms the sturgeon in Riga, Latvia. Once the eggs are extracted, the fish are allowed to heal and then produce the next year's harvest, while breeding normally.

One small step for your soirees; one giant leap for sustainable fishery.

[Via The Independent]

Sunburst Trout Farm's caviar. Photo: Fred Sauceman, Flickr.

Cosmetologists have long raided the kitchen cabinet to make everything from cucumber lotion to egg white shampoo, but Sunburst Trout Farm's Sally Eason believes her new trout caviar skin cream is unprecedented.

"I always heard caviar was the best thing for your skin," says Eason, whose family has been raising mountain trout in western North Carolina since World War II. Laughing, she adds: "I'm hoping I'm going to look like I'm 22."

Caviar beauty treatments aren't new, but none of the products currently on the market are made from golden trout roe. Sunburst Trout Farm has a history of extracting value from trout eggs, having pioneered trout caviar in the early 1990s. The tangerine-hued eggs have since surfaced at ritzy restaurants and on Jacques Pépin's television show.

But in 2007, Sunburst's processing plant was destroyed by light-fingered arsonists who made off with 670 pounds of the farm's treasured roe.