Is Caviar a scam?

in this video we're doing a deep dive into the world of caviar which at upwards of3 or $400 for just 30 G is easily one of the most expensive Foods in the world but I'm approaching this video as a bit of a skeptic and asking the question is caviar actually worth it or is it just popular because of its status as a luxury product so I bought six different fish egg varieties at drastically different price points white fish caviar at just $10 salmon caviar at $13 and then I bought four varieties of sturgeon caviar American white at $50 baa at 77 osetra at $130 and a beluga hybrid cavar all the way at $250 for this little 30 G tint now we'll get into blind tasting these shortly but first I have some questions that we need to get to the bottom of one what does caviar even taste like for example does a cheap caviar taste that much different than a $250 one and what are the these different types of caviar we have and maybe Most Fascinating why is caviar so expensive and how did it become popular all over the world and that is the question we are going to start with because today caviar is known as this high-end ritzy appetizer but over the course of history that was not the case in the early days of Russia it was food for the everyday person and maybe even more shocking in the late 1800s there was what could be referred to as a Caviar Gold Rush in the United States where caviar was actually so popular and abundant it was offered as a free appetizer in bars to encourage drinking which is much different than today where the most expensive caviar in the world can go for 30 to even up to $100,000 for a kilogram of the stuff the history of caviar has gone through so many twists and turns over the past sever hundred years and it all starts with the sturgeon one of the longest living and largest fish in the world first I want to share a story brought to you by today's sponsor headspace 2023 for me was easily the most inspired I've been when it comes to work but it was by far 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also love the Han Zimmer Focus playlist for deep work scripting sessions so if you want to try headspace for yourself head to the link in my description to get a free 60-day trial and thank you again for sponsoring this video now let's get back to learning why these sturgeon fish eggs are so darn expensive the sturgeon is the common name for the 28 species of fish belonging to the Aspen seridi family which are recognizable for their prehistoric looking physical characteristics and for many centuries the term caviar exclusively referred to salted fish eggs from the sturgeon so for purposes of this section we're going to use the term cavar to specifically refer to these loose fish eggs harvested from the row of a female sturgeon now fish row is technically the entire ovary of a female fish including the mass of eggs and in preparation for spawning female fish will develop astonishing numbers of fish eggs in their row and this row forms into the coherent mass that runs alongside the belly of the fish for example a single salmon can have around 20,000 pearl-shaped eggs while a single sturgeon can have anywhere from 400,000 to 2 million eggs depending on the species age and body size and today one of the ways that caviar is differentiated is based on the species of thuron that the fish eggs come from for example baa osetra and Beluga hybrid caviar that we'll be tasting today are fish eggs from those specific species of sturgeon and two facts about sturgeon completely blew my mind and begin to explain why caviar is so expensive today first sturgeon are a slow growing late maturing fish where most species can live up to 60 years if not even longer and typically the females can take anywhere from 7 to 15 years before they even start producing eggs secondly sturgeon are massive and have very few Predators for example according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration the five Atlantic sturgeon species can grow up to 800 lb and 14 ft long what's even crazier is that the largest single Sturgeon caught on record was a female beluga sturgeon caught in the vulga delta in Russia in 1827 and this sturgeon measured in at 23 7 in and 3,463 pounds now these days of catching wild surgeon for caviar are completely gone as in 2006 the United Nations actually banned the global trade of wild caught caviar today basically all the caviar on the market is from sturgeons that were farmed through aquacultures with sustainability and conservation in mind now we'll take a look at how caviar is produced on farms today in just a bit but first let's do a crash course into how these fish eggs became so popular around the globe and to start it's worth asking why did humans start eating fish eggs in the first place as noted in on food and cooking because fish eggs contain all the nutrients that one cell will need to grow into a hatchling they're often a more concentrated form of nourishment than the fish itself with more fat and large quantities of savory building block amino acids and put simply humans started eating fish eggs for the same reason we started eating bird eggs as a nutrient-dense protein source and you can see they actually have similar layers that we learned about in the chicken egg video in fact many cultures preserve the entire row Mass from different types of fish and from on food and cooking they have a whole table of common fish eggs eaten around the world now the Persians seem to have been the first people to consume sturgeon eggs from the Caspian Seas as there are mentions of this as far back as the 4th Century additionally the word caviar is ultimately derived from the Persian word caviar from Caya meaning egg however to understand how it exists in its current press form and how it became popular all over the world we jump forward several hundred years to Russia where caviar was seen as kind of an innovation from the cured row Sachs of the sturgeon as noted in on food and cooking caviar appears to have risen in Russia sometime around 1200 CE as a more palatable alternative to the traditional preserved sturgeon ovaries and in Russia wild surgeon were caught from these Caspian Seas where the fish eggs were then harvested and the most popular and well-known species of sturgeon during this time and still today was the Beluga however instead of this very very high- pric luxury caviar was likely a normal part of the diet in most areas with an abundant supply of sturgeon however that soon changed just how many foods develop reputations that favor where they originated from such as parmesan from Italy or soy sauce from Japan Russia and the other countries neighboring the Caspian and black Seas became known for the original and supposed top quality caviar that was primarily from the surgeon in these areas which yield large plump eggs so over the next 6 to 700 years people began getting a taste for these sturgeon eggs which have been described as salty Umami and will tantalize your tongue with its little burst of flavor however the more popular that caviar got the more it was traded and transported the more surgeon was fish for and the population plummeted remember depending on this species they can take 7 to 15 years to produce eggs and live for 50 years or more so while the population of sturgeon was huge in the beginning since they don't really have any Predators other than humans every time a sturgeon was caught it's going to take a couple decades to recover which during the 13 to 1900s no one was really worried about and towards the end of the 1800s there became a shortage of caviar from the sturgeon in the black and Caspian Seas so fishing started to extend to other sturgeon species around the world caviar fishing operations popped up in China Italy France Bulgaria the United States and several other countries during this time but then they quickly collapsed and I think this story from the NOAA is probably a pretty common one that happened in most countries quote during the late 1800s people flocked to the Eastern United States in shts of caviar riches from the surgeon fishery known as the Black Gold Rush and by the beginning of the 1900s sturgeon populations had decline drastically close to 7 million pounds of sturgeon were reportedly caught in 1887 but by 1905 the catch declined to only 20,000 lb and by 1989 only 400 lb of sturgeon were recorded despite sturgeon becoming more and more scarce people still wanted caviar all throughout the 1900s and would happily pay for it as the price got higher and higher there's a great quote documenting this rise in price from a 19 1970 New York Times article whereas 10 years ago those Pearls of Caspian cost in the vicinity of $40 a pound the price is now well past the $60 price level in some of the swankier emporiums about town which if you adjust that into today's price is around $480 a pound now does caviar actually taste good enough to Warrant those prices we'll see shortly eventually though all this over fishing did come to a head with every sturgeon species becoming critically endanged DED and facing extinction and this is what led to the un's 2006 Global ban which effectively ended wild cot caviar and ushered us into the modern-day Farm caviar that we have available today as a reminder these are the four sturgeon caviar that I purchased for tasting in this video which were all farmed in various countries with different types of sturgeon and additionally we'll be tasting eggs from salmon and white fish too which made me wonder two things one why are there such big price differences between them and secondly do they actually taste different so let's quickly cover how is caviar made and process today and what is the flavor of caviar then it will be time for us to evaluate these in a blind taste test and answer the question is caviar actually worth it so now that sturgeon Farms are popping up all over the world you may think that caviar prices will start to come down however even with advances in aquaculture engineering sturgeon fish eggs will likely remain a luxury product due to several variables first there is a high infrastructure cost of the large tanks feeding and filtering all on the farms secondly sturgeons are hard to sex they have to be around 5 years old before a farm might be confident if a fish is male or female and because of this you're spending money on male sturgeon which don't exactly Drive much profit third once they are sexed the female surgeons still take a long time before they are ready to produce those eggs and many farms will start checking the surgeon at around 7 years for a potential Harvest but depending on the fish it could be 15 or 20 years and fourthly there is a tight window to actually harvest the eggs at their Peak ripeness so after years of waiting and finding the perfect time and keeping a sturgeon stress-free only then will a farm be ready to harvest the row but this is just half of the caviar process that row must be turned into the individual eggs for human consumption and is another reason why cavar is still so expensive today caviar processing is delicate tedious done by hand and the quality control is meticulous and here's an overview of how this process works so how is caviar made today well first the female surgeon is captured and stunned secondly the row is then removed from the fish and typically will be killed and butchered but there has been some experimentation with modern methods that can keep the fish alive third the row is then passed through a series of screens to loosen and separate the egg from each other and this step also filters out the actual ovaries and any membranes in the row sack however before going any further forth the caviar workers must carefully clean up the loose eggs by hand this includes individually picking out damaged or spoiled eggs any of the remaining row membranes and anything else that may have made it through the sifting screen process so this is very time intensive and detailed fifth the loose eggs are then mixed with salt until they reach a specific concentration and for caviar this is usually between between 3 to 10% salt six The Salted eggs are drained of that excess liquid and before tinning they are checked one last time for quality control being meticulously parsed over and graded before packaging then finally The Salted eggs get into the can tins and are preserved at below zero temperatures but they don't solidify since their salt levels lower the freezing point and finally The Salted eggs are then loaded into the tins that we can find at the grocery store available to buy and today the five biggest exporters of caviar ranked by ship weight are China Poland the United States Italy and Uganda so as a potential buyer of cavar you may be wondering how do you even choose what caviar to buy and why are there big price differences between them ultimately caviar is a product of supply and demand but it seems that there are two variables you need to choose from if you are picking out caviar for yourself first is the sturgeon species and secondly is the grade of the caviar so if you go to almost any caviar website they will have their caviar listed by the species of sturgeon which jumps it into a certain price range in my case the Bika sturgeon was the least expensive the osetra was in the middle and the Beluga hybrid was the most expensive however the same sturgeon can produce different grades of caviar for example here the osetra caviar can range from $129 all the way up to $49 for that same size 30 G tin and this is kind of just insane and may make you wonder well how is caviar graded and it seems 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 as far as we could find there are not standardized regulations when it comes to grading caviar for example if you go to a website or find some in the store you'll see terms like select Reserve Golden Reserve Royal president or imperial but it seems like all these terms are up to the individual company compes that are processing the caviar in the case of pasture raise eggs or certain types of meat there are whole documents outlining the specific standards that these products must go through and you have a much clearer picture of why they cost a lot more with caviar though it's tough to tell exactly what is causing the massive leap in price between grades like in the case of alus the most expensive caviar in the world it seems like the only reason the price is so high is because there's such a tiny supply of sturgeon that produce this specific color of eggs now personally I'm fairly pragmatic when it comes to food and I don't really care at all what the color of my fish eggs are what I want to know is how different do these actually taste and can I tell that difference in a blind taste test so let's get down to testing to round out the video I did three different tests with these six caviar variations test one is a comparison between the three most expensive caviar test two is a comparison between the three least expensive cavars and test three is a triangle test to see if I can actually tell a difference between a lowcost sturing caviar and a higher cost one it is not jumping off the page to me which one is which here now before I start giving my observations here is how to think about the flavor of caviar so at a high level these six properties make up the flavor of food taste Aroma texture sight physical and the human element and of the five tastes caviar is going to be primarily salty from the percentage of salt added before canning and secondly it will be Umami from the eggs being rich in the building block amino acids from an aroma perspective caviar should not have a strong Aroma and after doing a little sniff test of each I agree as far as smell goes I would say kind of that Brin like nutty earthy is it's not very fragrant however it has been said that different types of caviar can have subtle notes of nuttiness a butteriness dried fruit toasted grains or an earthy seaweed note too it and as we'll see some of this Aroma does come through oyster like maybe from a texture perspective the fish eggs can obviously range in size the white fish eggs are the smallest the sturgeon are kind of a medium size and the salmon eggs here are clearly the largest Additionally the membrane of the egg itself are said to range from soft to firm and of the sturgeon caviar the website says the Bika is the softest osetra is a similar softness and then the Royal Beluga is the firmest now can I pick up on these differences we'll see and as a teaser for test number two texture is one of the big differences in the salmon caviar whoo those bigger pearls actually do kind of burst and pop very unique textural experience next we have sight which as we touched on can vary widely and lead you with many interesting colors but I'm going to be blindfolded for all the tests so I can focus on the other aspects of flavor from a physical perspective the salty and Umami flavor should cause plenty of salivation in the mouth and generally caviar is typically served at cool temperatures from 30 to 40° so it'll be a nice cool Pleasant bite and lastly we have the human element and this is a reminder that we experience food not just with our physical senses but also through our emotions Nostalgia and cultural associations and when it comes to caviar the big one at play is its Association as a luxury product where if we spend a couple hundred on some fish eggs we are likely to to rationalize our purchase and really enjoy the experience so let's hop into test number one and see if the most expensive caviar is the one that I actually enjoy the most so I come to you as a complete caviar novice and I'm going to mix these up in blindfold because I don't want to know which one I'm tasting I'll just give you kind of an unfiltered honest opinion about which one I think tastes the best we got three different price points here but caviar can even be much more expensive than these three 30 G tins but let's see what we have mix them I got to be careful about not spilling any too got my got my fancy little caviar spoon too all right caviar number one and my first observation here is that eating caviar is just a very unique experience your tongue really salivates that's a very interesting textural experience the little orbs just kind of like they don't burst it almost feels like they kind of just they're not actually melting but you kind of just like swallow them and it's nice and salty your your tongue starts gushing with saliva um very very interesting however as I move on I'm asking myself are these significantly different in terms of taste Aroma and texture or is it pretty subtle that one to me tasted it a little more more salty Briner not as much salivation I would say on that on that second one as well okay number three okay that one I feel has like a little more little more Funk to it the first one I like the most I feel like I salivated the most but maybe that was just because I tried it first and I didn't know what I was expecting but let me go back through one more time and see what we got try not to spill any all right number one again yeah like a smoother cleaner finish if that makes sense I think it like causes me to like salivate a little bit more all right number two that one more is like a a a top salty taste I'm going to come back to number three here because I think three kind of has this interesting like Briney seafoody to it that the others like don't have all right number three so if I'm evaluating these for me three feels the most kind of salty Briny then two is the second most salty Briney and then I would say one is the the cleanest and smoothest of them number one is my favorite it just feels the most pleasing in the mouth and has like a very clean smooth finish whereas two and three kind of linger and overall here my biggest takeaway from this test is that there are some differences in taste and Aroma but they are pretty subtle and I would argue largely up to personal preference and from a texture perspective they can say the eggs are soft or firm but honestly they all felt very similar to me however that changes a lot with test number two where we look at fish eggs from a completely different species at a significantly lower price point I've got the sand fish eggs the white fish eggs and this is white sturgeon caviar which was I think $50 so significantly cheaper than the other options I have so let's give these a spin and see how close these are to those higher end and then we'll do one final taste test taking my favorite from this one and the prior test and doing a triangle test to see if I can guess which one is which all right there's not a perfect way to do this without touching the jar because they're different jars but let's just go with number one here texturally definitely a firmer bite to that one no question about it taste wise I would say a little kind of just salty Briny didn't get much else to it I would say that's kind of closest to the uh the Bika caviar that we had in the prior test let's go to number two here here who for me those are salty those are salty those bigger pearls actually do kind of burst and pop very unique textural experience not one I'm sure I love but a very interesting textural experience let's go on to number three for me this one's much closer to the osetra doesn't have the firm but that the white fish does matches the texture of the sturgeon eggs we had in the prior test I actually think this is pretty good and to me it tastes pretty close to the osetra which was my favorite from the last test so as a final test let's put the white sturgeon versus the osetra and see if I can save myself um 80 bucks and see if I can get that close experience so now let's do the final test between the lowest cost American farmed caviar and the middle priced 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 the white sturgeon let's give them a spin take one away and see if I can actually tell a difference between these okay see what we got here okay number one tasty good salivating dare I say that's the osetra off the bat ah I don't know let's give them let's get let's go down to number two those felt pretty similar uh let me let me go to three though before I get ahead of myself here after tasting all three it is not jumping off the page to me which one is which here these are all kind of running together for me I'm going to say one and three are the same and two is different not a confident guess though okay so white sturgeon oeta osetra did not guess it correctly really started run together very hard to tell a difference 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 that's not present in the osetra but it's just a different note it's that would purely be down to preference on what you like and after tasting this more I think I may even just like this maybe maybe because I know it's cheaper that's why I'm saying that so let's answer the question is caviar actually worth it and for me I think the answer is clearly no based on my testing I would say you are mostly paying for the high cost that it takes to produce a limited supply of caviar that being said it is an interesting experience and if you're curious about what caviar tastes like for yourself my advice would be to not go out and buy a high-end $200 or $300 surgeon caviar your first time instead start with the lowest cost sturgeon caviar you can find in the US we can get Farm caviar from California from $3 to $60 which will give you a great idea of what caviar is like from a taste Aroma and texture perspective and additionally the lowcost Alternatives of white fish and salmon caviar while much different are interesting in their own right however now that I've tasted a bunch of different cavars like I'm good I don't really have any desire to go out and buy more caviar or go to like a higher-end restaurant where they have a specialty caviar service it's an interesting food but in no way is that cost Justified even in comparison to other luxury foods that we have discussed on the channel $170 wagu steak a $100 bottle of traditional balsamic or a $40 bottle of soy sauce or buying some fresh truffles are all luxury foods that I would consider buying again for a special occasion and rank them way above caviar for me I appreciate why caviar does cost so much in the modern day and I love its fascinating history from kind of common food to high-end appetizer but once you realize it can cost $250 for a little 30 G tin or over $1,000 for 120 g it kind of leaves me with it's interesting but I don't really understand what all the hype is about anyway this video was a ton of fun to dig into and I would love to hear comments from you on what you found most interesting about cavr in this video but that will wrap it up for me in this one I will catch you all in the next one peace y'all

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 1,532,252

Keywords: Ethan Chlebowski, why is caviar so expensive, why is caviar expensive, why is caviar so good, why is caviar a delicacy, fish eggs, caviar, fish eggs caviar, is caviar good, is caviar healthy, caviar fish, caviar harvesting, sturgeon caviar, expensive caviar vs cheap, cheap vs expensive caviar, is caviar worth it

Id: sClalDEIVbo

Length: 28min 21sec (1701 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024