Here are some caviar facts you will find interesting
- The worlds largest supply of caviar up to 2007 came from the Caspian Sea (the largest inland sea in the world), followed by the Black Sea.
- The Russian word for caviar is Ikra.
- Some species of sturgeon, can live up to 100 years or more.
- 95% of caviar is imported to the US, the European Union, Switzerland, and Japan.
- Some sturgeon can grow up to 2500 pounds and 15-feet long.
- Ancient Persians invented salted caviar, but it was the Russians who first came up with lightly-salted (Malossal) caviar.
- One ounce of caviar contains only 70 calories.
- Caviar is high in Iron, in fact you can get over 10% of your daily requirement of iron from caviar roe.
- The word sturgeon, is originally a German word storjen.
- Caviar is processed by running the large sac of roe over an ultra-fine mesh screen which separates the eggs into individual grains.
- The largest sturgeon ever caught was a 28-foot long Beluga that weighed 4,570 pounds, and caught in 1736.
- The only sturgeon roe that cannot be eaten is from the Green Sturgeon (its flesh and roe are poisonous).
- Caviar was first canned in 1906.
- It takes around 10-15 years of apprenticeship before caviar makers in Russia are allowed to process caviar on their own.
- Caviar was once served in saloons to get people to drink more beer.
- Fresh Caviar must be stored at 28-31 degrees Fahrenheit(-3C).
- Astrakhan, Russia has the oldest (some over 200-years old) and largest Caviar fisheries in the world.
- The two main producers of caviar are Russia and Iran (located on either side of the Caspian Sea).
- One of the reasons Caviar is so expensive, is because it takes the sturgeon a long time to mature: Beluga 20 years, Osetra 13-15 years, and Sevruga 6″Â 10 years.
- Sturgeons became endangered due to overfishing and also because the traditional method of removing the eggs was to kill the fish. Today many caviar producers surgically remove the eggs keeping the sturgeon alive to produce more eggs.
- Europeans like lightly-salted caviar, while North Americans and the Japanese prefer more heavily salted versions.
- Caviar is packaged in 1-ounce, 2-ounce, and 5-ounce containers, or 100, 200, 300, or 500 gram tins.
Fifty percent of the world’s caviar is purchased by airlines who serve it to their first-class passengers.