Caviar

[Aristocrat]

Hi, I'm a big fan of caviar and my question is just what brand and type of caviar you most like?

My favourite is Tsar Nicoulai, black beluga or sevruga, lets call it a tie

.

 

[Kent Wang]

Honestly, I prefer salmon roe to caviar.

 

[Aristocrat]

No way man! It's to bitter.

 

[Kent Wang]

I've never had that problem. I find caviar too salty -- though I still love it, just not as much as salmon roe. I like the mouthfeel of bursting each single salmon egg. Briny and rich, like tasting the ocean.

 

[Aristocrat]

Haha yeah it does taste like ocean, though i think the berluga is more smooth and sweeter to eat.

 

[Stax]

trout love it!

 

[Kent Wang]

Melon caviar from El Bulli.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Oscietre.

 

[pejsek]

Sadly, I'm afraid the glory days of caviar eating are behind us. As an exchange student in the old Soviet Union (circa 1984) I consumed perhaps a lifetime's worth of caviar (ditto with the vodka washing it down). Now it may have just been the hunger talking, but I don't think so. (It was a kind of feast or famine existence: you were either forcing down a bowl of cabbage soup with lard in the cafeteria or you were out on the town trying to spend those non-convertible rubles on taxis and elaborate multi-course restaurant meals, often, quite naturally, starting with caviar.) I recall the caviar tasting as the purest essence of the sea. The caviar I've tasted since then has never failed to disappoint and I'm sure capitalism is to blame. Back in the day, caviar was a source of hard currency for the Soviet regime. Quality control was high and stocks were carefully guarded (after all, only a fool would have been caught poaching or cheating; one of Brezhnev's cronies was actually executed for his role in a con by which caviar was smuggled abroad in herring tins). After the fall of the Soviet regime it seems that everyone in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea with a rowboat tried to get themselves at least a couple of sturgeon. The last time I bought caviar was a tin of osetra in Prague in the mid 1990s and (though purchased from a reputable source) it was a foul concoction--fishy, oily, overly salted. I prefer to just live with the memories, I guess (esp. here in San Francisco where dungeness crab with a bottle of Corton-Charlemagne--if you aren't buying caviar you can splurge just a little on the wine--and a nice sourdough baguette seems a fair trade-off). I've heard good things about Iranian caviar. I believe Petrossian's top offering is now Iranian. And that makes sense to me since it's probably just as silly to f with the Iranian govt as it was to do the same with the old Soviet authorities.

 

[Kent Wang]

I once saw in an episode of Carmen Sandiego: The Animated Series that the Soviets were swimming in so much caviar that they were feeding the low-grade stuff to their cats -- Russian blues, natch.

 

[LabelKing]

During the Soviet days, furs and caviar were their only source of hard currency-along with selling the old Czarist art objects.

Despite its elitist reputation, caviar was or is a very commonplace food in Russia. Of course, there are different grades to be expected.

Iranian caviar is believed to be superior to Russian caviar apparently.

 

[pejsek]

During the Soviet days, furs and caviar were their only source of hard currency-along with selling the old Czarist art objects.

Well, no actually. Oil, timber, and natural gas brought in vast sums of money. Caviar and furs (along with vodka) were among the few consumer goods to be exported from the Soviet Union. This helped a little with Soviet prestige, I guess, but revenue from these items wasn't remotely in the same league as the money generated by natural resources. Most of the art and antiquities also thankfully remained in the country (except, of course, the exceptional samovar I smuggled out).

Despite its elitist reputation, caviar was or is a very commonplace food in Russia. Of course, there are different grades to be expected.

A nice romantic view, I suppose, but caviar has never been a common food anywhere (probably a combination of scarcity and sumptuary expectations--if not restrictions). Salmon, however, was extremely common in Russia and much despised by the peasantry at certain points. During Industrialization workers sometimes succeeded in negotiating limits on the frequency with which they could be expected to eat salmon.

 

[DM.ru]

I, as the Russian, prefer red cariar...and not only because of the $$$... what can be better of so-called ""pyatiminutka" fresh red caviar saulted for half an hour ?

 

[Dmax]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

During the Soviet days, furs and caviar were their only source of hard currency-along with selling the old Czarist art objects.

Despite its elitist reputation, caviar was or is a very commonplace food in Russia. Of course, there are different grades to be expected.

Iranian caviar is believed to be superior to Russian caviar apparently.


I respectfully disagree. Caviar was never a commonplace food, at least during the Socialist era. Anything that could be reliably exported by the state was not to be sold to the locals. There were special stores in the big cities that sold "Export-only" goods including caviar that only accepted hard currency of the Western Block. Kind of ironic, since the Soviet ruble was officially pegged as 1:1 to USD. The problem was the state would not exchange any rubles for you. It ended up as with everything else in USSR the people who had caviar had to get it on the black market or through "connecitons."

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

During the Soviet days, furs and caviar were their only source of hard currency-along with selling the old Czarist art objects. Well, no actually. Oil, timber, and natural gas brought in vast sums of money. Caviar and furs (along with vodka) were among the few consumer goods to be exported from the Soviet Union. This helped a little with Soviet prestige, I guess, but revenue from these items wasn't remotely in the same league as the money generated by natural resources. Most of the art and antiquities also thankfully remained in the country (except, of course, the exceptional samovar I smuggled out). Despite its elitist reputation, caviar was or is a very commonplace food in Russia. Of course, there are different grades to be expected. A nice romantic view, I suppose, but caviar has never been a common food anywhere (probably a combination of scarcity and sumptuary expectations--if not restrictions). Salmon, however, was extremely common in Russia and much despised by the peasantry at certain points. During Industrialization workers sometimes succeeded in negotiating limits on the frequency with which they could be expected to eat salmon.
I suppose the memories of Westerns visitors to the 1970s Soviet Untion are not to be trusted for accuracy of local customs. However, stores such as A La Vieille Russie made their fortune on cheaply bought Faberge, etc. from the Soviets.