When my parents were first married they would be forced to eat abalone due to running out of money at the end of the month. They had friends who would go abalone diving on the California coast and give away bags of it.
Caviar was a free bar snack
51–60 of 113 posts
Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#52Now there are poachers and counterfeitters.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/longreads.com/2019/02/12/the-ca...
Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#53"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.
Similarly, 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.
"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.
Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#54"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.
> 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.
Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#55I grew up eating caviar (brought back from trips to Russia where it was dirt cheap in the 90s, not from being rich), and I absolutely love it. It's an incredible flavor, but definitely an acquired taste.
Like many things, if you grow up eating it, you learn to appreciate it. You can also learn to appreciate things that you didn't eat as a child, though that takes much longer as an adult. For me, I learnt to appreciate spicy food (in particular numbing spicy Sichuan food, and other Asian spices) as an adult.
Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#56And lobster wasn't a fancy meal until early 20th century https://www.history.com/news/a-taste-of-lobster-history "lobsters were routinely fed to prisoners, apprentices, slaves and children during the colonial era and beyond"
Makes sense: lobsters are essentially insects, and eating insects, such as cockroaches is disgusting for most people. I still refuse to eat lobsters and shrimps for this exact reason: I'm not eating any insects, ever.
I'll eat any insects. Well, not on the regular maybe, but I'd try them. I still want to try some grasshoppers and centipedes and whatnot, I wonder about the taste. I love salted shrimp, I remember seeing them in the water at the beach all the time, and people were literally walking there with a fine net and catching them. Not anymore though, waters are more polluted and they've been overfished I guess.
Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#57Came here thinking this was about the demise of caviar the app.
Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#58Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's like saying that Trabant is a much cheaper alternative to Bentley. Technically it is... but not quite. Edit: I don't know how to be any more clearer here, but "Olive tapenade as a beluga caviar alternative" is straight from the /shit-the-hn-says department, it's beyond ridiculous. "Ketchup as a San Marzano tomato alternative."
I'd have more sympathy for your viewpoint if caviar actually tasted as good as olive tapenade ...
Well, olives are revolting to me, while caviar tastes great.
Re: Caviar was a free bar snack
#60"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.
> 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…
>> 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.