Caviar

Group: Animal Sources

Caviar is a true luxury delicacy and one of the most precious edible delights. It may come as a surprise, but caviar was once widely used as a popular, common food. Today it is a pleasurable treat and even a status symbol. Caviar originates from the shores of Caspian and Black Sea: Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Kazakhstan, where it still represents one of the typical dishes of the local cuisine. It is often served as an appetizer on toasted buttered bread.

Caviar is made of salted fish eggs but, despite the popular belief, only the roe of three types of sturgeon fish are worthy of the name Caviar. Caviar refers only to fish roe harvested from Beluga, Osetra, or Sevruga sturgeon, the wild sturgeon species living in the Caspian and Black Sea. Other crowd-pleasing and much less expensive types of roe are often falsely referred to as caviar, and almost all cultures living by the sea have their own methods of harvesting and preparing fish roe.

Even though it may sound simple, mixing fish roe with salt is a delicate procedure that requires a lot of skill. Caviar is made of unfertilized fish roe, but no fishes are killed in the process of harvesting. Still, their long lives aren’t as glamorous as the fine delicacies they offer. Commercial fish farmers usually extract the roe surgically, keeping the fish alive only to allow it to produce more roe. In the past, the procedure was even more brutal, as it was performed by clubbing the fish in the head before extracting the ovaries.

Once when the roe is obtained from fishes, it is run over a fine mesh that separates eggs, letting them fall in a special dish - and this is when it becomes tricky. Apparently, the caviar maker adds a clear-cut amount of pure sea salt to the bowl, and the exact measure is so hard to determine that it requires 10 to 15 years of apprenticeship before the student is allowed to make the caviar on its own. This whole buzz about measures may come a bit clearer if we consider the prices for pure genuine caviar. The average market prices for Beluga caviar, obtained from the rarest of the sturgeon fish, are ranging from $7,000 to $10,000 per 1 kg!

Caviar has for long been regarded as a food of love. Its reputation as an aphrodisiac is possibly connected to primitive associations with fish eggs as a symbol of reproduction. Science also supports this claim to the certain extent, teaching us that caviar contains significant amounts of zinc, and zinc is known to promote higher levels of libido. Most likely, aphrodisiac potential of caviar emerges only when it is enjoyed with well chilled vodka or champagne, but the major part of its seductive power probably emanates from the aura of luxury and wealth, surrounding this delicacy.

When it comes to perfumery, caviar note became available when Theirry Mugler developed the exclusive molecular distillation method that allows to fully recreate the aromatic essence of any given substance. The molecular extraction of caviar is described as similar to the smell of iodine, nothing special in the olfactory terms, but still able to give the fragrance a lot of body. In Theirry Mugler’s Womanity, the first-ever sweet and savory fragrance creation, caviar note is used to achieve that perfect balance, and make a wonderful equilibrium with sweetness of the figs. It is also used to pronounce luxury and sophistication, being one of the finest goods of our world, and to add a gentle twist of vanity, so indispensably needed to describe the most subtle being on earth – a woman.