When: July 18
National Caviar Day on July 18th celebrates one of the world's most luxurious foods — the salt-cured roe of sturgeon. True caviar is beluga, osetra, or sevruga from Caspian or Black Sea sturgeon, though the term is applied broadly to various roe products globally. Its price reflects genuine scarcity: the sturgeon that produce it are critically endangered, their populations decimated by overfishing and poaching throughout the 20th century.
True beluga caviar comes from a fish that can live 100 years and weigh over a ton — and the eggs are harvested only once, at the cost of the fish's life.
Sturgeon have existed largely unchanged for over 200 million years — they predate the dinosaurs. The Caspian and Black Sea beluga sturgeon (Huso huso) can live for 100 years and grow to 20 feet and 2,800 pounds. The roe of a single large female can weigh 500 pounds. These extraordinary animals and their eggs have been harvested by peoples around the Caspian Sea for thousands of years. Caviar wasn't always a luxury. In 19th-century America, sturgeon were so abundant in the Hudson River and Delaware Bay that caviar was served free in saloons alongside beer — like peanuts, as a salty snack to drive thirst. American caviar was exported to Europe in such quantities that it was sometimes relabeled as Russian and sold back to American consumers at premium prices. The sturgeon population collapsed by the early 20th century from overfishing. The Soviet Union controlled Caspian Sea caviar for much of the 20th century, and Russian and Iranian caviar became the world standard. After the Soviet...