Yuck, fish eggs; who knew? For people not privy to the food made famous by the pleasantly posh, you may not realize what caviar is and have that knee-jerk reaction when someone spills the beans on its origins. Caviar - the more famous type - is harvested from the Sturgeon. The Sturgeon is actually a prehistoric fish, one of only a dozen or so species on the planet to exist at the same time as the dinosaurs. In itself, that little tidbit of information is enough to make the Sturgeons eggs worth their weight in gold.
The first recorded instance of someone enjoying fish eggs was in France in 1553, according to Rabelais and his Faits et dits Heroiques du Grand Pantagruet. The first recorded instance of the word "Caviar" was in 1591. The word "Caviar" actually originates from the Turkish "khavyar" and the food was rumored to be a staple in the diets of the Middle Eastern and other Eastern Europeans for hundreds of years before it became a delicacy.
Much like lobsters today, caviar was once considered a "poor man's" food, and was serviced in America during the nineteenth century during free lunches in various saloons. The Sturgeon eggs were salty and said to go extremely well with the beer of the times. Caviar has had its ups and downs, however, and 300 years prior to the great American giveaway, caviar was exclusively served to royalty.
The reason for the switch from royal delicacy to poor-man's cuisine had to do with the overabundance of the Sturgeon and the lack of knowledge as to its origins in America. Caviar would soon see a rise back to prominence, however, when a German immigrant, Henry Schacht, took full advantage of America's Sturgeon supply and began shipping caviar to Europe at a much inflated price (one dollar per pound). Other entrepreneurs soon followed the trend, and the exportation of caviar became one of America's fastest growing businesses.
Russia soon joined the caviar boom in 1900, shipping their "exclusive" product back to America at an even higher rate. However, the state of Pennsylvania issued a report stating that Russian caviar was, in fact, the same caviar being shipped from America, after a leading authority examined the two egg sets side-by-side.
The prices of caviar continued to climb, and Americans were no longer enjoying their "free lunch" snack. Because of the big business opportunity the Sturgeon fish offered, they were nearly fished to extinction. A species that survived a great meteor impact, a few ice ages, and a developing species (humans) appetite in the Middle East seemed to have met its match when it came to capitalism.
Soon, however, people realized that the Sturgeon was not the only fish to hold tasty eggs, and the Romanoff Caviar Company turned to salmon roe, lumpfish, and whitefish to harvest their caviar. Today's caviar comes in all shapes and forms, from over a dozen varieties of fish. The Sturgeon's eggs are still the most popular, and thus the most expensive, but other forms of caviar are also multi-billion-dollar businesses.
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