Caviar: A Global History (Edible)

Caviar: piquant, luxurious and decadent, it is renowned the world over. A story of greed, indulgence, enterprise and hope, Caviar: A Global History starts by looking back to its heyday in Tsarist Russia, America and Europe in the Roaring Twenties, before telling the story of production, trade and consumption today.

Renowned food writer and historian Nichola Fletcher takes the reader on a tour of the main areas of caviar production – Russia, Iran, Europe and America – investigating how overzealous entrepreneurs, as well as illegal fishing and black-market trade in the post-Soviet Caspian States, have contributed to the plight of the sturgeon, the victim of our insatiable desire for caviar. She examines the practical solutions to overfishing – the development of sustainable sturgeon farming and the alternatives to sturgeon roe – and discovers that it is possible to enjoy caviar with a clear conscience.

It would be easy to write caviar off as an out-of-date and unsustainable indulgence, but Fletcher shows that the story is far more interesting and complex than that. She proves that there is hope for the future, and that we may consume with gusto one of life’s most opulent foods.