Despite sturgeon sourced caviar’s apocryphal Russian
origins, does trout sourced caviar qualify as bona fide American caviar?
By: Ringo Bones
In actuality, modern commercial caviar started in America,
in fact it started in Albany, New York. Remember Albany Beef? It’s a sturgeon
sourced delicacy where the sturgeon roe caviar was originally as the byproduct
originally given for free like complimentary free peanuts in bars around Albany
close to sturgeon processing plants. Given that surgeon breeds more slowly in
comparison to other commercially caught fish in the United States, substitutes
to sturgeon roe were tried and those from species of commercially caught fish
with better fecundity that taste closer to sturgeon roe are marketed as caviar
substitutes with varying degrees of success. One of these is trout caviar.
Trout are important game fishes that are included with
salmon in the family Salmonidae. They are distributed circumpolarly in Arctic
and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Characterized by soft-rayed
fins, small scales and an adipose fin behind the dorsal fin, trout occurs in
salt and fresh water and in many cases both sea-run and land-locked populations
of the same species are known. All species migrate upstream to spawn. There are
two main groups, the chars and trouts, distinguished by the arrangement of the
teeth and the shape of the vomer bone in the roof of the mouth.
Among the many species of chars, two of the best known are
the brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, of eastern North America and the Dolly
varden, Salvelinus malma, of the west. These fishes have both red and light
spots on a dark body rather than the red and black spots on a lighter
background found in most Salmo. The large lake trout, Cristivomer mamaycush, of
the Great Lakes region and northward is also char. The other group of trout
includes the steelhead, Salvelinus gairdneri, or rainbow trout, a native of the
Pacific coastal area and the brown trout, Salvolinus trutta, of Europe. Both
had been introduced widely in the United States and elsewhere. In the Rocky
Mountain Region and westward there are other species. Some are of great beauty,
such as the golden trout Salvelinus agua-bonita; cutthroat trout, Salvelinus
clarkii and Yellowstone trout, Salvelinus lewisi.
Before the widespread commercial production of trout roe
caviar, the eggs of trouts are often raised in fish hatcheries and so the fish
had been widely distributed. Hybridization makes this fishes difficult to
identify. Their beauty and splendid game qualities as well as their excellent
flesh are praised by all. In many southern states in the United States the
large mouth bass, Huro salmoides, and the weakfish, Cynoscion regalis, are
called trout. Trout have been introduced in the Southern Hemisphere. The New
Zealand Chilean native trouts belong to a different family, the Galaxiidae.
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