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"It takes twenty years for a female beluga to mature, and at that point she can weigh as much as 1,800 pounds [...]. Such a fish could yield twenty pounds of eg
by mkl 7y ago
"It takes twenty years for a female beluga to mature, and at that point she can weigh as much as 1,800 pounds [...]. Such a fish could yield twenty pounds of eggs [when killed]."
That's got to be one of the least sustainable things I've ever heard of. I tried caviar once. It didn't taste like much, and I didn't see the point.
- nkrisc 7y agoI haven't tried the super expensive stuff, but it tasted like seawater to me. Didn't really see the point of it. At least with other expensive foods like saffron or truffles they are very potent and have pretty unique flavors. Instead of caviar I'll just add salt next time.
- tempguy9999 7y agoGot bumped from cattle class to royal class (sic) on a flight when I was a kid. Got to taste real caviar. Black, salty, fishy and rather fatty. Bit gross really. Also got asked for a drink (alcoholic, I guess I was old enough). Cattle class you got the drink. Royal class you got a saucer with a coaster with a doily with a smaller coaster on that finally with the drink parked atop, and a tiny fork next to it to pull out the olive in the drink, which it didn't actually have because it was baileys. Hmm.
- cvs268 7y agoHaha... nice sponsored content!
- tempguy9999 7y agoI don't get it? They were both examples of utter stupidity via conspicuous consumption. That's how I expected them to be seen anyway.
- defterGoose 7y agoIn all fairness, even in the higher classes on airlines, any caviar served was probably not the greatest quality. Even so, the fatty, fishy taste is what most people prize caviar for.
- nscalf 7y agoIt’s the same thing as the rhino horn stuff in China, it’s all a silly status symbol.
- mc32 7y agoThere are ways to surgically remove fish eggs from sturgeon, so it’s possible for this to renewable, but most caviar fishers harvest from dead fish —however it’s not a necessity, it’s just “easier”.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoIt is as sustainable as fishing any other species of fish. Whether caught for meat or eggs the result is the same. What matters is the quantity fished. Many luxury foods became so because of culture/fashion trends, btw. For example, lobster used to be used to fertilise fields and to feed prisoners and servants in the American North-East.
- mkl 7y agoYeah, that's why I don't buy fish.
- jrochkind1 7y agoYou're ahead of the curve, soon nobody will be able to.
- ghostbrainalpha 7y agoLobster population is actually exploding as a result of global warming. Real beef hamburgers are the food we will probably have to say goodbye to first.
- kgwgk 7y agoWhere is lobster population increasing due to warming?
- peterwwillis 7y agoWhere they catch them? https://qz.com/506376/lobsters-2/ https://qz.com/506376/lobsters-2/
- kgwgk 7y agoThanks, it makes sense... I remembered some recent alarmists headlines about how lobsters will decline in the area due to warming but forgot that it was warming in the first place that made it the sweet spot it's currently. Edit: anyway, production in the US has doubled in the last 20 years but the increase in global production is less than 50%. So it has not "exploded" in all the places where they catch them.
- varjag 7y agoI dunno, it tastes pretty good to me. But if one is used to spicy food and strong flavours, most of seafood doesn't taste much.
- huhtenberg 7y agoThey no longer kill the fish to extract the caviar. They can now drain the caviar through a form of cesarean, basically, and release the fish back.
- adrianN 7y agoInteresting. I wonder whether they have data on the survival and procreation rate of fish treated in that manner.
- simonh 7y agoI’d be astounded if the didn’t. They just need to tag the fish and check caught fish for older tags.
- tk75x 7y agosturgeonaquafarms.com Article about them here https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennysplitter/2019/01/31/beluga-caviar-straight-from-the-farm-in-florida/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennysplitter/2019/01/31/beluga...
- naravara 7y agoDo fish regrow their eggs over time or is like, once harvested they're barren for life kind of deal? And if so, do they tag them to keep track?
- mkl 7y agoThey regrow them, but they're prevented from reproducing that year. In massively overfished species that take a long time to mature, this seems like a problem.
- gwbas1c 7y agoI'd think that the fish meat is also valuable? That's a lot of meat.
- mkl 7y agoYes, but that length of time to mature means population growth can only be slow, even in ideal, unfished circumstances, and as the article explains, sturgeon have been overfished everywhere.
- billfruit 7y agoSimilarly, there is a vegetable known as the heart-of-the-palm, or otherwise known as millionaire's cabbage, which can be harvested from a fully grown coconut tree, but which will kill the tree once harvested.
- crazygringo 7y ago"Millionaire's cabbage?" That's funny. Go to Brazil, heart-of-palm is in basically every salad bar anywhere, as common as lettuce and tomatoes. Just a normal and normal-priced vegetable, very mild flavor. A lot of vegetables kill the plant that produces them... and the heart-of-palm that is canned and sold is produced from farmed palms that aren't coconut palms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_palm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_palm
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoI did some extra research because I find this sort of HN style dismissivness extremely annoying. Millionaire's cabbage seems to refer to Millionaire's salad which seems to be specific to the use of Deckenia nobilis, which are a protected species due to illegal over-harvesting. So the assertion that the term "millionaires cabbage" is funny because heart of palm is common in brazil seems disingenuous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deckenia_nobilis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deckenia_nobilis
- allannienhuis 7y agoor perhaps they'd never heard of the term before (as I hadn't), and didn't know about the distinction, as the previous post didn't make that explicit, and they didn't bother to do the research you did. Not sure why you're jumping to the conclusion that the comment was disingenuous.
- upvotinglurker 7y agoFrom Harold McGee's fabulously scientific book On Food and Cooking[0]: "Hearts of palm are the growing stem tips of various palm trees, especially the South American peach palm Bactris gasipaes, which readily resprouts after its tip is cut....[Harvesting] hearts of other palms often results in the wasteful death of the entire tree." (emphasis mine) [0]https://books.google.com/books?id=bKVCtH4AjwgC&lpg=PA316&vq=hearts%20of%20palm&pg=PA316#v=snippet&q=hearts%20of%20palm&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=bKVCtH4AjwgC&lpg=PA316&vq=...
- crazygringo 7y ago> I tried caviar once. It didn't taste like much, and I didn't see the point. Caviar's similar to coffee or olives -- strong taste, deeply complex, some people love the complexity and others find it too off-putting. I personally find it delicious and unique. I've never heard anyone say it "didn't taste like much" though -- usually more of a love-it-or-hate-it thing. Also why it's eaten in small amounts, since it's so strong.
- moate 7y ago>> Also why it's eaten in small amounts, since it's so strong. Fact check- It's eaten in small amounts because it's extremely expensive at this point due to people realizing the difficulty in producing it. If you look back to the heyday of caviar consumption (turn of last century and earlier), there were recipes that would call for as much a cup of caviar per serving. Tastes will always be personal, but the "strong flavor so people will eat less" is just your personal preference not necessarily a widely held belief.
- crazygringo 7y agoWow, a cup per serving? That must have been a very different type of caviar? With modern caviar commonly sold today, I feel like the salt content alone would make that impossible, beyond just the taste. Tody it would be like eating a cup of canned and salted anchovies instead of just a couple in your caesar salad... it just doesn't make sense no matter what your personal preferences are. Or like eating an entire jar of capers. Or maybe there are other types I'm not aware of? When I'm talking about the strong taste, I'm talking about these types for example: https://www.petrossian.com/blog/caviar-info/understanding-caviar-guide-caviar-types/ https://www.petrossian.com/blog/caviar-info/understanding-ca...
- WorldMaker 7y agoAs with most foods, salt content varies with intended shelf life and processing method for storage, because salt remains humanity's oldest and most commonly used preservative. https://caspianmonarque.com/caviar-processing-methods/ https://caspianmonarque.com/caviar-processing-methods/
- Mikeb85 7y agoNowadays the majority of caviar is farmed and the eggs often harvested using no-kill methods.
- ryguytilidie 7y agoBy the same token "This thing is stupid and pointless, partly because I didn't find it to fit my tastes. I guess I'll just assume everyone feels the same way I do and I'll marvel at why other people have different taste than me" is something I don't see the point of.