Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World's Most Coveted Delicacy

From the time that the TV series, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, hit the small screens viewers were invited to indulge themselves in the "caviar dreams" of the wealthy. I suppose it was due in part to this reference that I have always been intrigued by this delicacy of delicacies. Caviar, the book, is an enjoyable read that leads the reader through the very interesting history of caviar, the food, from its surprisingly humble origins in Russia to its New World presence and industry. The book also tells the sad plight of the sturgeon, the huge fish from which the finest caviar in the world is harvested, and how this "living fossil" is now in danger of becoming extinct and that in order to sate the lust that the super rich have, not only for the taste of caviar but for its prestige as well. Interestingly, I found that the sturgeon story has some similarities to the tragedy of the near extinction of the American Bison. Whereas in all too many cases the buffalo was slaughtered only for its tongue, the sturgeon is taken not so much for its meat which is consumed for food, but for its primary and, comparatively, small contribution in its eggs. A truly fascinating story, read it with a big dish of beluga and crackers or, better yet, save the sturgeon and read it like I did with a coke and some pretzels. I couldn't have afforded even a small dish of beluga anyway. THE HORSEMAN

I know nothing about caviar or sturgeon, but subject matter aside, this is one of the most well-written boutique histories I've ever read (and I've read many of them). Saffron's writing is fantastically engaging. This is no dry academic text; I felt as though I were reading a book of fiction in terms of its readability and sense of adventure. I was constantly laughing or smiling or worrying along with the author. Let's hope Saffron continues to write boutique histories!

I have been served red, black and gray caviar at "Slava", possibly the best restaurant in Moscow...and I STILL didn't like it. (Our Russian friends gladly accepted our serving like it was gold.) This is a great, little story about caviar and the history of this delicacy and the great fish that supplies it. The sturgeon, of which there are several varieties, is an ancient animal, predating the dinosaurs. It has remained essentially unchanged because there was no reason for evolutionary modifications. It can grow to incredible sizes and the eggs sacs are astounding. In Russia, though, the sturgeon nears extinction as the race to capture as much caviar as possible continues. In that country, it is an art - the capture, gutting, creating, selling of this product. THe author gives us first-hand experiences as we fish with the natives, suffer their increasingly declining catches and commiserate in their gloom. Then there are history lessons on both biological and cultural paths. The ending is not upbeat.. For the fish to regenerate we must rethink our ideas about what constitutes a delicacy. One problem is the low price of caviar - so low it no longer constitutes a "delicacy". A good and timely book.

From the famous Petrossian company, you can get 1.75 ounces of caviar from the increasingly rare Russian Beluga sturgeon, for $170. If you are bargain hunting, you can get the caviar from the white sturgeon for $88. If you are poverty stricken, Petrossian has condescended to sell salmon roe for about a ninth the cost of the white sturgeon, but salmon roe (which the Petrossian catalogue insists is "sometimes referred to as red caviar") just isn't caviar, and caviar lovers know it. Inga Saffron is a caviar lover, and shows it in _Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World's Most Coveted Delicacy_ (Broadway Books). She is architecture critic for _The Philadelphia Inquirer_, and was its Moscow correspondent from 1994 to 1998, when she was able to do a bit of cloak-and-dagger research into the dark alleys of the caviar trade. Her love is tempered by worry; the surprising history of humans' involvement with sturgeon has not done the sturgeon much good at all, and soon the sturgeon may not be doing any good for connoisseurs, no matter how wealthy.The sturgeon is one of those organisms that Darwin called "living fossils." Some species have remained the same over the past 250 million years, but the past two hundred years that have given sturgeon real problems. Before that, they were not valued as food, but with the industrial revolution came better preservation and also a wealthy class that liked luxuries. Sturgeon were fished clean from the German Elbe River and the American Delaware River by the early 1900s. The stock in the Caspian sea rebounded some during the years of revolution and war in the first part of the twentieth century, and the Communists were well aware of the potential of caviar to bring cash. They controlled almost all the caviar supply by 1927, and they really controlled it, making sure it stayed a luxury. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the caviar cartel was ended and poaching began. Capitalism has been deadly for the last sturgeon populations. Thousands of poachers who needed the money swarmed onto the Volga, prices tumbled, and so the poachers had to increase their take to keep going.There is at least one researcher who is experimenting with "milking" the eggs from a live fish without killing it, so that she might bear again. That might be a hope for the sturgeon, as might be the plan to make caviar from the paddlefish, a Mississippi River relative of the sturgeon. White sturgeon are being raised in California, and Siberian sturgeon in France. Sturgeon farming is up against more problems than salmon farming; for one thing, sturgeons take ten years to mature sexually, so investors are looking at ten years of no profit and even no income. An attempt to farm sturgeon on the Volga means that huge quantities of sturgeon manure go downstream, and undoubtedly some of the farm-bred varieties will escape and breed with the wild fish, changing genes and spreading disease. Such attempts at environmenta

The mystique of the sturgeon roe drew me to this book initially. As a self-proclaimed gourmand but admitted novice when it comes to caviar, I had much to learn. Ms. Saffron provides a crash course in the history of caviar to the present, and the effect of mankind's taste for the delicacy on the worldwide sturgeon population. The story is told just as that, a story of the author's hard-won education in sturgeon fishing and the caviar business, highlighting several key figures in the history of caviar. She has done an incredible amount of footwork and research, presented succintly in this volume. In the end, this small book leaves one feeling the cultural, financial, and ecological impact of the dwindling sturgeon populations, and at once stimulates a strong hunger for the tiny fish eggs and an equally strong sentiment to avoid them altogether.