The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Caviar: the flavor of luxury
Give guests tasty bites of UGA-produced fish eggs.
Chances are good your New Year’s Eve menu includes a few of your favorite indulgences. A bottle of sparkling wine, a decadent chocolate dessert, a small tin of caviar. Hmmm …. caviar. Maybe you’re like chef Gerry Klaskala of Aria and can’t get enough. “I remember when another chef and I were doing a dinner and the host had bought way, way too much caviar for the party. The guests were having their entrée and we went out to clean up the reception area. There was still an ungodly amount of caviar left. We couldn’t help ourselves. We got out our spoons — any chef worth his salt should have a mother-of-pearl caviar spoon — and ate our fill.”
Or maybe you’re reluctant to even give it a try. Fish eggs, you think? Salty fish eggs?
There are a lot of options out there. Tiny jars and small tins of salmon roe, or the eggs of flying fish, trout or whitefish. But to be labeled “caviar,” the contents of that container must be salt-cured eggs from sturgeon.
The sturgeon is native to parts of Europe and Asia, and caviar from the Caspian Sea might be the world’s most famous. But sturgeon are also native to North America, and of the nine North American species, four are native to Georgia: Lake, Atlantic, Shortnose and Gulf. This leads UGA professor Douglas Peterson to say, “Georgia should be known as the ‘Sturgeon’ state rather than the ‘Peach’ state.”
Peterson is leading the university’s effort to grow sturgeon in an environmentally sustainable way. “Fifteen years ago, the caviar industry was 90 percent wild harvested. Now wild fish are the source of a very small percentage of the world’s caviar.”
The university started raising sturgeon in 2003. They’re farming Siberian sturgeon, which aren’t native to Georgia so the university must have a special permit to raise them. “This is a demo project just to show that you can grow sturgeon and produce caviar in a cost-effective way. A small commercial farm would produce one to two tons of caviar a year and we produce 100 pounds.”
Yes, the University of Georgia is producing caviar, although as Peterson says, in very small quantities.
“It’s a fun side project to our demo project on farming sturgeon. The whole process is expensive. To build a commercial facility would cost several million dollars and it takes the fish six or seven years before they grow old enough to begin producing caviar. That’s a long time to wait for a return on your investment.”
The caviar itself is simply sturgeon eggs, washed carefully and then salted. All UGA’s caviar is distributed through Inland Seafood, which sells it to shops and restaurants.
UGA’s caviar is popular on local menus and at local fish counters. Chef Craig Richards of St. Cecilia enjoys having it on his menu because guests are surprised to find high quality caviar produced so close to home. At Star Provisions they sell five to six varieties of caviar at any time, and chef and owner Anne Quatrano says the UGA caviar is their best selling caviar by far. “The eggs are delicate, glossy and rich. And the price is more than fair.” A 30-gram jar ( just slightly over 1 ounce) is $75.
Bill Demmond says he’s been Inland Seafood’s “caviar guy” for over 30 years. “I love the stuff. I could open up an eight-ounce tin and just eat it with a spoon. Or I like it with a little bit of crème fraiche on a very plain cracker like a Carr’s table water, or white bread toast. Some people like it with onion or egg. But onion is
too strong and egg is boring. And you accompany it with Champagne or good vodka, chilled.”
Inland carries a dozen premium caviars along with other types of fish roe. “Sturgeon caviar really is the best. It’s a combination of their diet and their metabolism. The caviar has a richer flavor. It makes a rich, wonderful, delicious bite. The eggs are just an explosion of flavor. The only reason the salt is added is to act as a preservative,” said Demmond.
He says the UGA caviar is one of the two best caviars Inland sells, but also notes with a laugh that it can be a hard sell outside Georgia because of that UGA logo on the label.
Aria’s Klaskala says caviar is one of the few things you really don’t need a recipe for. “It’s sublime. When it’s perfectly fresh and perfectly salted, it’s like the ocean. Yes, it’s an indulgence, but it’s a very special thing. Buy the best you can.”
Star Provision’s Quatrano agrees. “I believe my first experience with caviar was at Petrossian in Manhattan in the late 1980s. It was one of the splurge meals we saved for, one a month. And my favorite way to eat caviar is off the spoon. It needs nothing else.”
“If you’ve never had the pleasure of just eating caviar out of the tin, you need to,” says chef Gerry Klaskala. But go ahead. Chefs Klaskala, Quatrano and Richards give you permission to gild the lily (and stretch your budget). Serve your caviar with other luxurious bites from the sea such as fresh scallops, smoked trout or oysters.