Is Caviar a scam?

In this video we delve into the world of

caviar

, which at over $3 or $400 for just 30G is easily one of the most expensive foods in the world, but I approach this video as a bit of a skeptic and wondering if

caviar

is really worth the money. pity or is simply popular due to its status as a luxury product, so I bought six different varieties of fish eggs at drastically different prices. White fish caviar only $10. Salmon caviar $13. And then I bought four varieties. of American white sturgeon caviar at $50 baa at 77 osetra at $130 and a beluga hybrid dig up to $250 for this little 30 G tint.

Now we'll start blind testing them shortly, but first I have a few questions we need to answer. at the bottom of one, what caviar tastes like, for example, a cheap caviar tastes very different than a $250 one and what are the different types of caviar that we have and perhaps most fascinating why caviar is so expensive and how It became popular all over the world and that's the question we're going to start with because today caviar is known as this luxurious high-end snack, but throughout history that wasn't the case in the early days. From Russia, it was food for the For the average person and perhaps even more shocking, at the end of the 19th century there was what could be called a Caviar Gold Rush in the United States, where caviar was actually so popular and abundant which was offered as a free aperitif in bars to encourage alcohol consumption, which is much more surprising.

Unlike today, where the most expensive caviar in the world can cost between 30 and even up to 100,000 dollars for a kilogram of that product, the history of caviar has gone through so many twists and turns over the last hundred years and it all starts with The sturgeon, one of the oldest and largest fish in the world, first I want to share with you a story that today's sponsor, headspace 2023, presented to you, for me it was without a doubt the most inspired I have ever felt when it comes to work, but it was by far the largest. It's also stressful, we started a completely new business in Cookwell.

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Sturgeon is the common name for the 28 species of fish belonging to the Aspen seridi family that are recognizable by their prehistoric-looking physical characteristics and for many centuries the term caviar referred exclusively to the salted fish eggs of the sturgeon, so For the purposes of this section we will use the term dig to specifically refer to these loose fish eggs collected from the spinneret of a female sturgeon. Now the string of fish is technically the entire ovary of a female fish, including the egg mass, and in preparation for spawning, the females will develop an astonishing number of fish. eggs in their row and this row forms the coherent mass that runs along the belly of the fish, for example, a single salmon may have around 20,000 pearl-shaped eggs, while a single sturgeon may have between 400,000 and 2 million of eggs depending on the species. age and body size and today one of the ways caviar is differentiated is based on the species of polecat that the fish eggs come from, for example, the hybrid baa osetra and beluga caviar that we will try today are eggs from fish from those specific species of sturgeon and two facts about sturgeon completely blew me away and I started explaining why caviar is so expensive nowadays.

Firstly, the sturgeon is a slow-growing, late-maturing fish where most species can live up to 60 years, if not longer, and typically females can take anywhere from 7 to 15 years before they start producing eggs. Second, sturgeons are huge and have very few predators, for example, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, all five species of Atlantic sturgeon can grow up to 800 pounds and 14 feet long. What's even crazier is that the biggest. The only recorded captured sturgeon was a female beluga sturgeon caught in the Vulga Delta in Russia in 1827 and this sturgeon measured 23.7 inches and weighed 3,463 pounds. Now, these days of trapping wild tangs for caviar are completely gone, as in 2006 the United Nations actually banned the global trade in wild-caught caviar.

Basically, all caviar on the market comes from sturgeon that were farmed through aquaculture with sustainability and conservation in mind. Now we'll look at how caviar is produced on farms today in a moment, but first, let's take a crash course on how these fish eggs became so popular around the world and to start, it's worth asking why humans started to eat fish eggs first, as outlined in Food and Cooking, because fish eggs contain all the nutrients that a cell will need to grow into a hatchling, they are often a more concentrated form of food than the cell itself. fish, with more fat and large amounts of tasty basic amino acids and, in short, humans started eating fish eggs for the same reason we started eating birds. eggs as a nutrient-dense protein source and you can see that they actually have similar layers that we learned about in the chicken egg video.

In fact, many cultures preserve the entire mass of the row of different types of fish and from food and cooking they have a whole mass. Chart of common fish eggs eaten around the world. Now the Persians seem to have been the first to consume sturgeon eggs from the Caspian Sea, as there are mentions of this as early as the 4th century. Furthermore, the word caviar is ultimately derived from Persian. The word caviar from Caya means egg; However, to understand how it exists in its current form in the press and how it became popular around the world, we fast forward several hundred years to Russia, where caviar was seen as a kind of innovation from the Sachs Curated Fila of the El Sturgeon, as noted in Caviar on Food and Cooking, appears to have emerged in Russia around 1200 AD. as a tastier alternative to traditional preserved sturgeon ovaries, and in Russia wild surgeonfish were caught in these Caspian Seas, where the fish eggs were then collected and The most popular and well-known species of sturgeon during this time and was still today the beluga;

However, instead of this very high-priced luxury caviar, it was probably a normal part of the diet in most areas with an abundant supply of sturgeon; However, that soon changed. How many foods develop reputations that favor their origin, such as parmesan from Italy or soy sauce from Japan? Russia and the other neighboring countries of the Caspian and Black Seas became known for the original and supposedly high quality caviar that came mainly from the surgeon of these areas produce large, plump eggs, so for the next 6 to 700 years the people started trying these sturgeon eggs which have been described as salty Umami and will tantalize your tongue with their little explosion of flavour;

However, the more popular caviar became, the more it was traded and transported, the more the surgeon was caught and the population plummeted. Remember that depending on this species, they can take 7 to 15 years to produce eggs and live 50 years or more, while the sturgeon population was huge at the beginning since they actually have no predators other than humans. Every time a sturgeon was caught, it would take a couple of decades to recover it, which during the 1913s and 1900s no one was really worried about and towards the end of the 19th century there was a shortage of sturgeon caviar in the Black and Caspian Seas, so the Fishing began to spread to other sturgeon species around the world.

Caviar fishing operations emerged in China, Italy, France, Bulgaria, the United States, and several other countries during this time, but then quickly collapsed and I think This NOAA story is probably quite common and happened in most of the countries. In the late 19th century, people flocked to the eastern United States in search of caviar riches from the surgeon fishery known as the black gold rush, and in the early 20th century. Sturgeon populations had declined dramatically, about 7 million pounds of sturgeon were caught in 1887, but by 1905 the catch declined to only 20,000 pounds and in 1989 only 400 pounds of sturgeon were recorded despite sturgeon becoming increasingly scarce. further.

People still wanted caviar all the time. in the 1900s and would happily pay for it as the price went higher and higher. There is a great quote documenting this price increase in a New York Times article from 1970, whereas 10 years ago those Caspian Pearls were around $40 a pound. is now well above the $60 price level at some of the city's fancier emporiums, which if you adjust to the current price is around $480 a pound, now caviar actually tastes good enough to justify those prices that we will see shortly, even if all this ends. The fishery reached a critical point when all sturgeon species became critically endangered and faced extinction, and this is what led to the United Nations global ban in 2006, which effectively ended to wild-caught caviar and introduced us to the modern farmed caviar we have today as a reminder, these are the four sturgeon caviars that I bought to try in this video, all grown in several countries with different types of sturgeon and, in addition, We will try salmon eggs and white fish, which made me wonder two things, one why.

Are there such big price differences between them and secondly, do they really taste different? So let's quickly see how caviar is made and processed today and what caviar tastes like. Then it will be time to evaluate them in a blind taste test and answer. The question is whether caviar is really worth it, so now that sturgeon farms are popping up around the world, you might think that caviar prices will start to drop; However, even with advances in aquaculture engineering, sturgeon eggs will likely remain a luxury product due to several variables. First, there is a high infrastructure cost for the large tanks that feed and filter everything on the farms.

Secondly, it is difficult to determine the sex of sturgeons. They have to be around 5 years old before a farm can be sure if a fish is male or female and, because of this, we're spending money on male sturgeons that don't exactly generate much profit. Thirdly, once sexed, the surgeons still take a long time to be ready to produce those eggs and many farms will start checking the surgeon at around 7 years old for a potential harvest, but depending on the fish it could be 15 or 20. years and fourthly, there is a very short period to collect the eggs at their peak maturity, so after years of waiting and finding the perfect moment and keeping the sturgeon stress free, only then will a farm be possible The row should be ready to harvest, but this is only half of the caviar process.

That row must be turned into individual eggs for human consumption and is another reason why digging is still so expensive today. Caviar processing is delicate, tedious and done by hand. Quality control is meticulous and here is an overview of how this process works. So how is caviar made today? First, the surgeon is captured and stunned. Second, the fish is removed from the line and is usually killed and butchered, but there has been some experimentation. With modern methods that can keep the fish alive, thirdly, the line passes through a series of screens to loosen and separate the eggs from each other and this step also filters out the actual ovaries and any membrane in the line sac. , however, before continuing.

Next, the caviar workersThey must carefully clean loose eggs by hand, this includes individually picking up any damaged or spoiled eggs, any of the remaining membranes from the row and anything else that has gone through the sifting process, so this is time consuming and It's detailed. The loose eggs are then mixed with salt until they reach a specific concentration, and for caviar this is usually between 3 and 10% salt. The excess liquid is drained from the salted eggs and, before canning, they are checked one last time for quality. They are meticulously analyzed and sorted before packaging and finally the salted eggs go into the cans and are kept at sub-zero temperatures, but they do not solidify as their salt levels lower the freezing point and finally the salted eggs are They load in the cans that we can find in the supermarket available to buy and today the five largest exporters of caviar classified by ship weight are China, Poland, United States, Italy and Uganda, so, as a potential buyer of dig, You may be wondering how to choose which caviar to buy. buy and why there are big price differences between them, ultimately caviar is a product of supply and demand, but it seems there are two variables you have to choose between if you choose caviar yourself: first, the species of sturgeon and second, the grade. of caviar, so if you go to almost any caviar website, they will see their caviar listed by sturgeon species, which puts it in a certain price range.

In my case, the Bika sturgeon was the least expensive, the osetra was in the middle and the Beluga. the hybrid was the most expensive, however the same sturgeon can produce different grades of caviar, for example here osetra caviar can cost from $129 up to $49 for that same size 30G tin and this is kind of crazy and it may make you wonder how caviar is graded and appears to be determined by multiple characteristics such as the size, firmness, color and flavor of the fish eggs. However, this is where in our research there seems to be a big problem, from what we could find, there are no standardized regulations when it comes to grading caviar, for example.

If you go to a website or find one in the store, you will see terms like select Reserva Dorada Real Reserva Presidente or Imperial, but it seems that all of these terms depend on the individual companies that process the caviar in the case of grass-fed. raise eggs or certain types of meat, there are comprehensive documents outlining the specific standards these products must meet and one has a much clearer idea of ​​why they cost so much more with caviar, although it's hard to say exactly what is causing the massive jump. in price between grades, as in the case of Alus, the most expensive caviar in the world.

It seems that the only reason the price is so high is because there are a very small number of sturgeon that produce eggs of this specific color. Personally, I am quite pragmatic. When it comes to food and I really don't care at all about the color of my fish eggs, what I want to know is how different they really taste and I can tell that difference in a blind taste test, so let's get to it. Tests To complete the video, I did three different tests with these six variations of caviar. Test one is a comparison between the three most expensive caviars.

Test two is a comparison between the three least expensive caviars and test three is a triangle test to see if I can. I can actually tell the difference between a low cost cured caviar and a higher cost one, it doesn't jump off the page which is which here, before I start giving my observations, here's how to think about caviar flavor at a high level . These six properties make up the taste of food, the flavor, the aroma, the texture, the sight, the physical and human element, and of the five flavors, caviar will be mainly salty by the percentage of salt added before canning and, Secondly, it will be the umami because eggs are rich in basic amino acids from an aromatic perspective, caviar, they should not have a strong aroma and after doing a small sniff test of each one, I agree that As far as smell goes, I would say that Brin, as an earthy nut, is not very fragrant, however, it has been said that different types of caviar can have subtle notes of nuttiness, butter, dried fruits, roasted grains or an earthy note. of seaweed as well and, as we'll see, some of this aroma comes from the oysters, perhaps from a texture perspective like fish eggs.

They obviously vary in size, the white fish eggs are the smallest, the sturgeon eggs are medium sized and the salmon eggs here are clearly the largest. Additionally, the membrane of the egg itself is said to vary from soft to firm and that of sturgeon caviar on the website. It says that the Bika is the softest, the osetra has a similar softness and then the Royal Beluga is the firmest. Now I can grasp these differences that we will see and, as a preview of test number two, texture is one of the big differences in salmon caviar. Wow, those bigger beads actually pop and pop, a unique texture experience.

Next we have vision which, as we mentioned, can vary widely and guide you with many interesting colors, but I will be blindfolded during all the tests so I can concentrate. As for the other aspects of taste, from a physical perspective, the salty and Umami taste should cause a lot of salivation in the mouth and generally caviar is served at cold temperatures of 30 to 40 °C, so it will be a nice, fresh bite and lastly we have the human element and this is a reminder that we experience food not only with our physical senses but also through our emotions.

Nostalgia and cultural associations and when it comes to caviar the biggest at stake is its association as a luxury product where if we spend a couple hundred on some fish eggs we are likely to rationalize our purchase and really enjoy the experience so Let's move on to test number one and see if the most expensive caviar is the one I actually enjoy the most, so I'm coming to you as a complete caviar newbie and I'm going to mix them up blindfolded because I don't want to know which one I'm trying. I'll just give you an honest, unfiltered opinion on which one I think tastes the best we have.

There are three different prices here, but the caviar can be even much more expensive than these three 30G cans, but let's see what we have to mix them up. I have to be careful not to spill anything, I also have my fancy little caviar spoon. Okay, caviar number. One and my first observation here is that eating caviar is a unique experience, your tongue actually salivates, it's a very interesting textural experience, the little orbs just don't explode, it almost feels like they just don't. it's actually melting, but you just like swallowing them and it's nice and salty, your tongue starts gushing with saliva, um, very, very interesting, however, as I go on, I'm wondering if these are significantly different in terms of flavor, aroma and texture, or is it like that.

Quite subtle, that one to me tasted a little saltier. Briner doesn't have that much saliva. I would say the second one is also good, number three, okay, I feel like that one has a little more Funk in the first one. I like it better, I feel like I salivate more, but maybe that was just because I tried it first and didn't know what to expect, but let me review it one more time and see what we got, try not to spill anything. okay, number one again, yeah, like a smoother, cleaner finish, if that makes sense, I think it makes me salivate a little more.

Okay, number two, that one more is like a superior salty flavor. I'm going to go back to the number. three here because I think three has that interesting seafood Briney flavor that the others like is not good number three so if I'm evaluating them for me three feels like the saltiest Briny so two is the second most Briney salty and then I would say that one is the cleanest and smoothest of them, number one is my favorite, it just feels nicer in the mouth and has a very clean and smooth finish, while two and three remain and generally, here my biggest takeaway from this test is that there are some differences in flavor and aroma but they are quite subtle and I would say they are largely down to personal preference and from a texture perspective you can tell that the eggs are soft or firm, but honestly, they all felt very similar.

However, for me that changes a lot with test number two, in which we look at fish eggs from a completely different species at a significantly lower price. I have sand fish eggs, white fish eggs and this one is white sturgeon caviar which I think was $50 it's a lot cheaper than the other options I have so let's give them a spin and see how close they are to the ones from high end and then we'll do a final taste test taking my favorite from this and the previous test and making a triangle. test to see if I can guess which is which.

Okay, there's no perfect way to do this without touching the jar because they're different jars, but let's go with number one here texture-wise, definitely a firmer bite for that one, for sure. As for the taste, I would say it is a little salty. Briny didn't get much more. I would say it is closer to the Bika caviar we had in the previous test. Let's move on to number two here, who to me those are salty those are salty those larger pearls actually explode and explode a unique texture experience, not one that I'm sure I love, but it's a very interesting texture experience, let's move on At number three for me, this one is much closer to the osetra.

It doesn't have the firmness but the white fish matches the texture of the sturgeon eggs that we had in the previous test. I actually think this is pretty good and to me it tastes pretty close to osetra, which was my favorite from the last test. So as a final test, let's compare white sturgeon to osetra and see if I can save $80 and see if I can get that close experience. Now let's do the final test between the lowest cost and mid-priced American farmed caviar. osetra caviar, which was my favorite from test number one, okay, so we have the two bowls of osetra from test number one and two bowls of white sturgeon, let's give them a spin, take one off and see if I can really notice the difference between these, okay? look what we have here, okay, number one, tasty, well, salivating, dare I say it's the osetra from the beginning, ah, I don't know, let's give them, let's go down to number two, those felt pretty similar, uh, let me, let me go to three.

Before I get ahead of myself here after trying all three, it doesn't jump off the page which one is which here, they all go together for me, I'm going to say that one and three are the same and two are different. Although it is not a safe assumption, okay, so the white sturgeon oeta osetra did not guess correctly, it really started running together very hard to notice a difference that is not clear to me at all. I guess after the fact I would say there is like a note in the white sturgeon that is coming through and that is not present in the osetra but it is just a different note, that would purely depend on preference of what you like and after trying this more, I think I might even like this, maybe because I know it's cheaper, that's why I'm saying that, so let's answer the question of whether caviar is really worth it and, for me, I think the answer is clearly No, according to my tests.

I would say that you are mainly paying for the high cost it takes to produce a limited supply of caviar which That said, it is an interesting experience and if you are curious about what caviar tastes like, my advice would be to not go out and buy a caviar from high-end surgeon for $200 or $300 the first time, but start with the lowest-cost sturgeon caviar. can find in the US, we can get California farm-raised caviar from $3 to $60, which will give you a great idea of ​​what caviar is like from a flavor, aroma, and texture perspective, and also, low-cost alternatives to white fish and salmon caviar, although they are very different.

They are interesting on their own, however, now that I've tried a bunch of different cavas like that's okay, I really have no desire to go out and buy more caviar or go to a high-end restaurant where they have a special caviar service. an interesting meal, but in no way is that cost justified even compared to other luxury meals we've discussed on the channel $170 wagu steak a $100 bottle of traditional balsamic or a $40 bottle of soy sauce or buy something fresh All truffles are luxury foods that I would consider purchasing again for a special occasion and would rank them well above caviar.

I understand why caviar costs so much these days and I love its fascinating history, from a common type of food to a high-end food. appetizer, but once you realize it can cost $250 for a small 30G can or over $1,000 for 120g, it leaves me scratching my head. It's interesting, but I really don't understand what all the fuss is about. Anyway, this video was a lot of fun. to go deeper and I would love to hear your comments on whatfound more interesting about cavr in this video, but that will end for me on this one. I'll see you all in the next one, peace to all.