A Caviar Guide

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A Caviar Guide

Caviar is not cheap, so we wrote this guide so you can arm yourself with the best possible information so you know you are spending your money wisely.

An important note on Beluga Caviar

The US Fish & Wildlife Service has BANNED the import of Beluga Caviar to the USA. Any Beluga you see for sale is either old, the ban took place in the Fall of 2005, or was illegally imported. DO NOT BUY Beluga caviar. If it pre-dates 2005, it is old. If it was illegally imported, it was illegally imported, and is also hurting the diminishing stocks in the Caspian Sea.

Only buy Fresh

Independent of the warning above about Beluga being possibly "old" caviar, you want the freshest product you can acquire. This is true for all perishable food, and especially true when you are spending the money to get caviar. Caviar has a one month shelf life, unopened. Here at Gourmet-Delights.com we order your caviar only once we have set a delivery date with you. You are thus getting the FRESHEST possible caviar. It doesn't sit in our store, it doesn't sit anywhere. It comes from our importer, to us, to you in less than 3 days. You cannot get fresher caviar anywhere!

Do not buy from supermarkets.

It does not matter if you have the nicest, prettiest, most well known supermarket a few blocks from your house. If they have it on their shelves, the clock started ticking on it days, maybe weeks ago. Old is not good, and it has a limited shelf life. By buying from Gourmet-Delights.com, you have our promise that it is less than 3 days in transit so you have the full 30 days to use it. Once opened, eat it within 48 hours, preferably within 24.

Malossol

Malossol means lightly salted. This shows you are buying high-end caviar. Others that salt heavily are trying to hide flaws in their caviar, and even trying to hide the fact that maybe it is past its prime. The best caviar is Molossol.

Caring for your Caviar

DO NOT FREEZE Caviar. This is the golden rule. Instead store it in the coldest place in your refrigerator. Normally this is at the bottom near the back of your refrigerator. We also recommend, just to be extra safe, to put the tins in a ziplock bag. Now take a second ziplock bag, fill it with ice, and put that on top of the bag containing the caviar. Your caviar is thus guaranteed to stay at 32F or below.

How much should I buy?

This is always a tricky question. If everyone LOVES LOVES LOVES caviar then 2 ounces per person is a great number. If you are having lots of other food, then you can move down to about 1 ounce per person. Are you making a caviar centric recipe? All our recipes list the number of ounces of caviar required, and the final serving size so please click on each product image to see those recipes.

Serving Caviar

  • While it is traditional to serve caviar with mother of pearl spoons, or even wooden utensils, it is OK to use metal utensils. Caviar is stored, and shipped, in metal tins, so do not believe the nonsense argument that "metal serving utensils will impart a metallic taste to your caviar". Metal utensils are used all the time, with a variety of foods, and no one complains about a metallic taste.
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