EATER | How It’s Made | Russian Sturgeon Caviar
We were happy to welcome EATER to our farm in Lenoir, North Carolina to make this fun video about how we make sustainable, domestic caviar.
We were happy to welcome EATER to our farm in Lenoir, North Carolina to make this fun video about how we make sustainable, domestic caviar.
Kathy Tobacco
December 26, 2018 @ 5:34 pm
I have no problem with the eating of fish. I eat fish, meat and poultry too. But since it takes so long to get a fish to maturity, I wondered why it wouldn’t be more cost effective to deliver the eggs c-section and thus use the fully mature female to make more eggs for you in the future? I got the small sample for 65 and we tried it and liked it. I am just curious about what seems like an obvious question to me. My son-in-law is Russian and that is the real reason we sampled your caviar. He loved it. Someday I will buy more, now that I know it is truly worth the expense.
Lianne Won
January 23, 2019 @ 9:56 am
A: Good question. Caviar is made from pre-ovulated eggs. Before ovulation, the eggs are connected through the entire ovaries by connective tissue that must be cut the length of the fish. In order to have the fish release the eggs from the ovarian tissue to be “milked” out, hormone injections would be required. Those hormone injections are illegal to use in the USA, and most of Europe (but are legal in China and some other countries). If the eggs are milked, they become soft and mushy, at which point a “hardener” must be added. In imported caviars, borax is used as this hardener. In the USA, borax is illegal to use in food production. If we could find a way to keep fish alive without use of potentially harmful and illegal hormones and chemicals, it would be to our benefit. In the meantime, we offer a clean, sustainable product that costs much more for us to make, than caviar made in farms that are allowed to use hormones and chemicals.