The mysterious luxury of Caviar

                                                            

Caviar

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The removal process of roes from the ovaries of female sturgeon.
Source: http://raibodcaviar.com/2016/07/15/caviar-oldest-

According to the Codex Alimentarius, caviar is one kind of food that originally comes from the roe of Acipenseridae family, which are Acipenser, Huso, Pseudoscaphirhynchus, Scaphirhyncus and hybrid species of these genera. In the past, caviar only refers to the roe that comes only from wild sturgeon in the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea.However, besides wild sturgeon that comes from that areas, there are also fish such as salmon, steelhead, trout and many more that their roes are also described as caviar depending on the country. There are many types of caviar that usually can be found such as Beluga, Sterlet, Ossetra and Sevruga caviar. They are 100 percent natural that comes from the roe of different species of sturgeon.

Beluga caviar also is known as Almas means “diamond” in Russian has the highest quality among the others as it was sold by London’s Caviar House. Actually, there were many stories about how caviar was first introduced. In the past, the roe of sturgeon or caviar was introduced and prepared from the Persian. The word of caviar originally comes from the “khav-yar” means “cake of strength or a “cake of powder” since they used it for medicine. Sturgeon also was known as ‘Royal Fish’ because it was reserved and consumed by the British kings and for the royal family. For those who never try consuming the caviar can be eaten with toast, blini, or potatoes.

However, nowadays the population of wild sturgeon becomes decreases around the world. Thus, most of the caviar productions come from farmed sturgeon that was raised and harvested in aquaculture farm by using the true sturgeon stock. Caviar is also made from kelp for vegetarian. Kelp caviar is best known as environmental-friendly because it only uses kelp seaweed that can be found in the ocean and does not contribute to the depletion population of sturgeon. Since the raw material comes from seaweed, it also provides a jelly texture like caviar and ‘fishy’ taste when we consume.

The preparation of the caviar only involves few stages. Let’s take the farmed sturgeon for example. When the sturgeon reach a matured age of around five or seven years, they will be transferred to other tub and mix with specific gas that acts as sedatives to make the sturgeon unconscious. By using the specific instrument that has high-frequency sound waves, we can check the sturgeon ovaries to see the egg production. If the eggs are ready to harvest, the worker will proceed to next stages. However, if not, they will release the sturgeon back to the tanks to mature them for some more time.

First of all, the ovaries will be removed from the female sturgeon and passed through a sieve in order to separate the eggs from the membrane gently by using the hands. The freed roes are rinsed repeatedly with cold water to remove the unwanted materials or impurities such as bits of broken eggs and tissue residues. An amount of salt is added into the roes. The salt helps in flavor development as it gives a taste, act as a preservative and also prevent freezing because caviar needs to be stored at the temperature between 0 to 2°C. In the last step, the roe is packed into the container, pressed down the cluster of eggs to eliminate any air to avoid oxidation and spoilage and sealed with airtight lids. Now the roes are ready to be eaten and known as caviar.

On the other hand, the preparation of the kelp caviar is quite long and more complicated than the original caviar from the roe of sturgeon. Kelp seaweed is suitable to be used as its special properties, which is gelatinous, making it ideal to produce tiny rubbery ball. First of all, the kelp seaweed needs to be dried naturally and ground it to become the fine powder. The process starts by mixing all the ingredients such as salt, citric acids, and natural flavouring mix together with water into a thick gelatinous liquid. Then, the mixture is pumped using extrusion machine to squeezes out the tiny droplets of pearl, which look exactly like fish eggs. After rinsing the kelp caviar with water, a specific quantity of natural stabilizer is added into kelp caviar to maintain the pearls texture and round shape of kelp caviar. After packing, they will undergo heat treatment at a specific time to increase the shelf life of the caviar.

The caviar can last about two or three weeks if we stored in unopened containers in the refrigerator.  Once opened, we should keep it in the refrigerator and it only lasts about two or three days only. For unopened pasteurized caviar, it can last about six months. Freezing caviar should be avoided because it can change the taste and texture of the roe. Therefore, the caviar should be kept in the refrigerator slowly to return it to thawed state if the caviar already was frozen for a day or two days. However, we have to beware that if we used the spoon from sterling silver, it will oxidize when comes into contact with the caviar, impart a metallic taste and discolor the silver.

Nowadays, we have to be careful when buying the caviar as the fake caviar also available in the market. Based on the taste, the fake caviar tastes extremely salty and can make the person who consumes it can increase its blood pressure. The fake caviar also contains the unnecessary and weird ingredients that are not added to original caviar as the original caviar only has two main ingredients, which are the roe and the salts. The original caviar also has lighter black beige colour.

As a conclusion, although we know that the price of caviar is quite expensive, but it is still worth as the caviar contains the much good benefits for our health. Caviar contains 47 vitamins and minerals through undergoes chemical analysis. Besides that, it also can help to promote healthy nervous, circulatory and immune system. For the original caviar products, each tin has a universal code that contains important information such as origin, species and whether the caviar derives from wild or farmed sturgeon. However, we have to be careful when buying the caviar product as the fake caviar also is very common.