The Hindu Business Line : Crave for caviar!

You may crown your canapés with it. Spoon it onto a crispy Melba. Or serve it as an entrée to an elegant meal. But this lush, luminous delicacy called caviar, which retails at Rs 5,000 a kg, is guaranteed to delight your palate. No wonder it has a celebrity fan following (Michael Schumacher, Tiger Woods, Britney Spears, Goldie Hawn and Cindy Crawford) and flies off shop shelves faster than you could utter `Beluga'.

"We can't seem to stock enough of caviar," admits Sripal Khanna of `All Things Nice,' an upmarket south Delhi grocery, which has been retailing caviar since the 1970s. "Earlier, mostly expats and hotels bought caviar; now people order it even for birthday parties. Demand has skyrocketed."

In fact, despite a drop in the global production of sturgeon — the source of caviar — over the last two centuries due to river pollution, rapid urbanisation and rampant poaching, demand has zoomed.

Lifestyle changes, peripatetic schedules and an explosion of eateries have re-defined eating habits, cultivating what is known in gourmet-speak as a `global palate.' This has fuelled the demand for caviar. Says Executive Chef Bakshish Dean of Delhi's Park Hotel, "Caviar gives an aura to a meal. We use it for special dinners and promotions — as a garnish, for salad toppings and cold cuts, or atop canapés — even though it is prohibitively priced."

The word Caviar comes from the Persian khaviar, which means `bearing eggs.' It also refers to the processed roe from three sturgeon fish species — Beluga, Osetra and Sevruga — found in the Caspian Sea. Other roes extracted from salmon, whitefish, paddlefish and lumpfish, are also called caviar. These eggs are gently harvested, washed and salted for flavouring and preservation.

Interestingly, sturgeon by itself is inedible. And while cheaper substitutes such as sturgeon roe (pink) or salmon roe (orange) abound, these are not quite the Real McCoy. "Authentic caviar like Beluga, Osetra or Sevruga is lumpy, grey-black and sticks together. Buyers must watch out for these features," warns Dean.

Though sturgeon has been around for over 250 million years, the discovery of caviar is shrouded in mystery. The first written record of caviar came from Batu Khan (grandson of Ghengis Khan), in 1242, and it described caviar as a "black delicacy, which absolutely thrilled the palate."

However, as an industry, it was not until the 14th century that production started in Eurasia and the Mediterranean. And as a delicacy, caviar didn't quite become fashionable till the French began importing it from Russia during the 19th century.

The American caviar industry began when Henry Schacht, a German immigrant, used sturgeon from the Delaware River in the 1800s. He treated this caviar with German salt and exported loads of it to Europe. Soon it became so commonplace that a nickel could fetch scoops of the best caviar in New York! Many reputed establishments, including the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, started serving caviar as an entrée to haute cuisine.

Caviar was also a common food in California during the Gold Rush. At the turn of the 1800s, there was such an over-production that caviar was served in bars a la peanuts and popcorn. To keep pace with the demand, caviar was commercially over-exploited and soon the resources began drying up. Modern-day caviar producers have learnt their lesson. They avoid killing sturgeon for caviar extraction and, instead, surgically remove the eggs. However, even this affects sturgeon mortality in the long run.

Sturgeon mostly live in brackish water and spawn multiple times during a lifetime, which is usually over 100 years. They have outlived even the dinosaurs and, today, 20 major species of sturgeon survive. The most well known is the mammoth Beluga, found in the Caspian Sea and weighing over 4,000 pounds. It is the source for the world's most expensive Beluga caviar (Rs 8,000 a kg). Currently, most of the world's caviar comes from the Caspian Sea, though minuscule amounts are produced in the Amur River between China and Russia. However, this spawning ground is facing a rapid decline in sturgeon population due to the development of dams and industrial and agricultural pollution.

Because of its exclusivity, myths swirl around caviar. The Chinese view it as a symbol of literary eminence and scholarly achievement. In Britain, an act of King Edward II, an avowed caviar enthusiast, declared sturgeon as `a royal fish' and decreed that every sturgeon caught be offered to the monarch first. A Red Indian legend says that the monster that swallowed Hiawatha — their unpopular devil — was a giant sturgeon.

Today, the caviar's appeal not only transcends culinary trends, but also geographical boundaries.

Caviar caveats

Don't open the caviar tin till required. Cover and refrigerate leftovers promptly and consume within a day or two.

While refrigerating the tin, cover the top tightly with a plastic sheet, turning the tin over each day to ensure that oil percolates evenly.

Refrigerate but never freeze caviar as this would toughen the roe membrane and alter the flavour. Place the tin in the coldest part of the refrigerator, in a bowl of crushed ice. Fresh caviar can be stored for three weeks, while unopened pasteurised caviar lasts six months.

Caviar roe should always be served using a non-metallic spoon. Caviar spoons are available in bone, tortoise, shell and mother-of-pearl. The jars should be removed from the fridge at least 15 minutes before serving.

Courtesy: Bakshish Dean, Executive Chef, Park Hotel, Delhi.

Picture by the author

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