Cheap Caviar is Wonderful!

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I've written more than once about Beluga Caviar -- its rarity, its expense and how it's served in high society. 

But lets get real!  To taste the difference between eggs from a twenty-year-old sturgeon and one that's a hundred-years-old takes a cultivated palate accustomed to caviar from childhood.  (And a tongue not numbed by wine and gin at a cocktail party.  Ha!)    

The only way drunken guests at a party can decipher if caviar is expensive or not is if they see caviar spoons laid out.   Ha! 

And most of these rich people take only a small taste from the already-small caviar spoons -- fearing the salt might give them a heart attack in their salt-free diets!   (How embarrassing would that be, to drop over dead at a cocktail party?  Ha!)

For the rest of us, inexpensive caviar from Lump Fish (red or black) is available in any supermarket (usually in the deli section).  Maybe it costs nine-or-ten dollars for a two-ounce jar, but that's considerably less than $3,000 for a half-kilo!  Right? 

And the taste is not dissimilar to the expensive caviar from the Caspian Sea --salty fish eggs.  Ha! 

For two years I lived in Switzerland (Geneva, the French side), and a friend there would often make this wonderful, very simple recipe:

-Boil some fettuccine
-Stir in some sour cream
-Serve it with Lump Fish Caviar sprinkled over the top.

You won't believe how good this is!  You can sprinkle some chives in here too, if you wish.  Adds color and an additional burst of flavour. 

But here's a tip:   Don't stir the spaghetti after you sprinkle the caviar!  If you do, the eggs will break and turn your beautiful dish black or gray -- speaking from experience! 


So we don't have to be rich to enjoy the taste of caviar!  Hope you'll try this, and hope you enjoy.  Let me know.

Good night,
Andrew