Prior to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruling, can any fish roe be called – and even sold as – caviar?
By: Ringo Bones
Believe it or not, there was a time in the history of the commercial caviar trade when any fish roe that can be colored black could be called caviar – this was before 1966. This lax law ended during 1966 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defined the product, and established rules for labeling. Traditionally, caviar has always been defined as any processed salted roe – i.e. the eggs of fish especially when still enclosed in the ovarian membrane – typically of sturgeon or other large fish prepared as an appetizer.
The best ones are made from female beluga sturgeon found in the Caspian Sea region. And the ultimate ones are from beluga sturgeon eggs that are caught and processed in the Volga River delta region – famous for being the ancestral home of beluga caviar. Caviar is not only characterized by the fish species from which it is obtained, but also classified based on the size, color, fragrance, flavor, uniformity, and consistency of the berry, as well as the glean, firmness, and vulnerability of the roe skin. Currently, there are three types of caviar that can still be harvested with commercial viability despite of the sturgeon’s decline as a species during much of the 20th Century due to over-fishing and the widespread pollution and damming of its natural habitat.
Beluga caviar is the most well-known type and it is sourced from the beluga sturgeon, a strong nomadic fish and is the largest of the sturgeon family, averaging 4 meters in length and weighing over 1,000 kg. It is now very rare, and only about 120 or fewer fish are caught annually. The roe in a beluga sturgeon can equal 15% of its body weight, and it varies in color from gray to dark gray. The largest of the three types, beluga roe has a fine, delicate skin, considerable texture, and visible “eye” on target in the middle of each egg or “berry”.
Osetra – sometimes spelled as oscetra / ossetra – caviar is more abundant than the beluga caviar – although the Caspian osetra sturgeon – like the beluga sturgeon – is currently facing imminent extinction unless concerted steps are taken to clean up and revitalize its natural habitat. Taken from the oscetra sturgeon / osetra sturgeon, the fish is a medium sized sturgeon measuring 2 meters long and weighs up to 200kg. Being a bottom-feeder, this type of sturgeon uses its elongated snout to vacuum aquatic plants and small sea life up from the seabed. Oscetra roe varies in color from dark brown to gray with golden shading with a fine layered surface. The oscetra roe have a unique taste of hazelnut – which I really much adore – that made its adherents declare it as the finest type of caviar.
Sevruga caviar is taken from the sevruga sturgeon – the smallest of the sturgeon family. Measuring only 1.5 meters long and weighing up to 25kg. Its small upward pointing snout and a distinct diamond-shaped exoskeletal plate is the distinguishing characteristic of this particular sturgeon. Sevruga roe has a fine surface texture and their color ranges from light to dark gray. Sevruga roes are small and they are popular due to their characteristic taste and smell. As the most abundant of the three still commercially fished types of caviar, it is also the least expensive type, thus making it very popular.
Another type of caviar worth mentioning though is the one that is taken from the sterlet sturgeon, as this variety was once extremely popular with the czars of Russia. Its small-grained golden caviar was once considered the finest available. However, the sterlet sturgeon was over-fished to the point of virtual extinction that it became commercially extinct way before caviar gained a notorious status as a sign of Western conspicuous consumption. Though sightings of sterlet sturgeon had been on the rise during the last few years.
So there you have it, the major types of caviar that passed muster in the 1966 U.S. Food and Drug Administration criteria as true blue caviar. Let’s just hope that there will be a concerted effort by the international community to prevent this fine delicacy from going the way of the dodo - or the shark due to unsustainable harvest of sharks for shark-fin soup. With conspicuous consumption comes consumer responsibility.
Showing posts with label Sterlet Sturgeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sterlet Sturgeon. Show all posts
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Does Caviar Consumption Have Pre-Czarist Russia Origins?
Historically, it was commonly believed that the czars and czarinas of Russia made caviar consumption famous, but does this prized delicacy have much earlier origins?
By: Ringo Bones
An overwhelming number of books about the history of caviar consumption usually begin with the czars and czarinas of Russia – in the 19th Century. While there are no surviving / credible historical documents on whether the Romanovs – believed to be of German or Prussian-Lithuanian Stock – already started the caviar consumption craze when they first came to Russia in the late 13th Century.
The earliest documentation on the origins of caviar has always been shrouded in history, although references to caviar in literature and art date back almost as far as the 400 million-year-old history of the sturgeon itself. It has been suggested that by 2,400 BC, ancient coast-hugging Egyptians and Phoenicians had learned to salt and pickle fish eggs to make them last through war, famine or long sea-crossing voyages. Facts supporting that the ancient Egyptians knew about caviar can be seen at the bas-reliefs at Necropolis near the Sakkara Pyramids that portray fisherman catching fish and removing their eggs.
The ancient Greeks – like the ancient Egyptians centuries before - were no strangers to caviar. According to some of the more esoteric writings of Aristotle, lavish Greek banquets usually end with a brass horn section fanfare announcing the arrival of heaping platters of caviar garnished with flowers. Unfortunately, the story of Greek caviar consumption must be reconstructed – not from credible historic documentation itself – but from philosophical and theoretical sources. Hence making Aristotle’s account of caviar consumption in ancient Greece rather fragmentary.
On caviar’s Oriental origins, some scholars’ claim that it was the Turkish who first coined the word “khavyar” from which the English term caviar originates. While others suggest that the term caviar has a Persian origin – “chav-jar” – which translates loosely as “cake of power” or “piece of power” due to the Persians’ widespread belief in the curative and strength-giving properties of caviar. The first written record of the word “khavyar” dates back to the 1240s from the writings of Batu Khan - Genghis Khan’s grandson - long before the word first appeared in English print in 1591.
Before being well documented in Europe, caviar consumption probably started there during the Middle Ages. Although not known for the qualitative aspect of their culinary tastes, Medieval English society considers sturgeon-sourced caviar as haute cuisine. King Edward II proclaimed the sturgeon as a “royal fish” and made a decree that all sturgeon caught in England belonged to the imperial treasury and must be surrendered to the monarch or gentry.
During the Middle Ages, many countries’ sovereigns had claimed exclusive sturgeon and caviar rights. In Russia, China, Denmark, and France, as well as England, most prevailing laws states that: “fishermen had to offer the catch to the sovereign”, often for fixed rewards. While in Russia and Hungary, the sections of rivers considered suitable for fishing the great sturgeon – the beluga, as we know it – were subject to special royal grants. Later on, the Francophone Larousse Gastronomique Cites la Dictionnaire du Commerce mentioned the dish as well in 1741.
Before consuming beluga caviar become a symbol of the Western capitalist high life, only the Russian czars and czarinas were known with enough documentary certainty as the earliest connoisseurs of beluga caviar. As the main conniseurs of caviar in Russia, the czars levied a caviar tax on the sturgeon fishermen. It is said that fisherman subjects of Nicholas II gave him 11 tons of the finest caviar annually as tribute before he was dethroned during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The type of caviar Nicholas II so enjoyed – the small golden eggs of the sterlet sturgeon – were so popular with Russian nobility that the species are now considered “commercially extinct” today.
By: Ringo Bones
An overwhelming number of books about the history of caviar consumption usually begin with the czars and czarinas of Russia – in the 19th Century. While there are no surviving / credible historical documents on whether the Romanovs – believed to be of German or Prussian-Lithuanian Stock – already started the caviar consumption craze when they first came to Russia in the late 13th Century.
The earliest documentation on the origins of caviar has always been shrouded in history, although references to caviar in literature and art date back almost as far as the 400 million-year-old history of the sturgeon itself. It has been suggested that by 2,400 BC, ancient coast-hugging Egyptians and Phoenicians had learned to salt and pickle fish eggs to make them last through war, famine or long sea-crossing voyages. Facts supporting that the ancient Egyptians knew about caviar can be seen at the bas-reliefs at Necropolis near the Sakkara Pyramids that portray fisherman catching fish and removing their eggs.
The ancient Greeks – like the ancient Egyptians centuries before - were no strangers to caviar. According to some of the more esoteric writings of Aristotle, lavish Greek banquets usually end with a brass horn section fanfare announcing the arrival of heaping platters of caviar garnished with flowers. Unfortunately, the story of Greek caviar consumption must be reconstructed – not from credible historic documentation itself – but from philosophical and theoretical sources. Hence making Aristotle’s account of caviar consumption in ancient Greece rather fragmentary.
On caviar’s Oriental origins, some scholars’ claim that it was the Turkish who first coined the word “khavyar” from which the English term caviar originates. While others suggest that the term caviar has a Persian origin – “chav-jar” – which translates loosely as “cake of power” or “piece of power” due to the Persians’ widespread belief in the curative and strength-giving properties of caviar. The first written record of the word “khavyar” dates back to the 1240s from the writings of Batu Khan - Genghis Khan’s grandson - long before the word first appeared in English print in 1591.
Before being well documented in Europe, caviar consumption probably started there during the Middle Ages. Although not known for the qualitative aspect of their culinary tastes, Medieval English society considers sturgeon-sourced caviar as haute cuisine. King Edward II proclaimed the sturgeon as a “royal fish” and made a decree that all sturgeon caught in England belonged to the imperial treasury and must be surrendered to the monarch or gentry.
During the Middle Ages, many countries’ sovereigns had claimed exclusive sturgeon and caviar rights. In Russia, China, Denmark, and France, as well as England, most prevailing laws states that: “fishermen had to offer the catch to the sovereign”, often for fixed rewards. While in Russia and Hungary, the sections of rivers considered suitable for fishing the great sturgeon – the beluga, as we know it – were subject to special royal grants. Later on, the Francophone Larousse Gastronomique Cites la Dictionnaire du Commerce mentioned the dish as well in 1741.
Before consuming beluga caviar become a symbol of the Western capitalist high life, only the Russian czars and czarinas were known with enough documentary certainty as the earliest connoisseurs of beluga caviar. As the main conniseurs of caviar in Russia, the czars levied a caviar tax on the sturgeon fishermen. It is said that fisherman subjects of Nicholas II gave him 11 tons of the finest caviar annually as tribute before he was dethroned during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The type of caviar Nicholas II so enjoyed – the small golden eggs of the sterlet sturgeon – were so popular with Russian nobility that the species are now considered “commercially extinct” today.
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