The sturgeon fish’s roe is the only fish egg classified as caviar according to the FDA. This fish has been around for over 250 million years. Sturgeon can reproduce multiple times throughout their lives and live to be over 100 years old.

Although it is not clear when people first ate caviar, its first written record of was from the grandson of Genghis Khan in the 1240s. Caviar did not become popular until the latter part of the 1800s when the French started importing the delicacy from Russia. Near the end of the 1800s Atlantic sturgeon on the east coast and white sturgeon on the west coast of North America were discovered. American caviar was so plentiful at that time that bars would serve the salty delicacy to encourage more drinking.

By 1915 the production of american collapsed and all fisheries were closed. Once wild sturgeon stocks had been wiped out in North America and Europe, more than 95% of the world’s supply of caviar was obtained from sturgeon from the Caspian Sea in Russia and Iran. In the early 1950s, the Russians began serious industrialization of their fisheries. Iran has been able to maintain a close control of the caviar industry on the southern end of the Caspian. Although Iran produces a very high quality product, the pollution does affect their resource as well.

The four main types of caviar are Beluga, Sterlet, Ossetra, and Sevruga. The rarest and costliest is from beluga sturgeon that swim in the Caspian Sea, which is bordered by Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. Beluga caviar is prized for its soft, extremely large (pea-size) eggs. It can range in color from pale silver-gray to black. It is followed by the small golden sterlet caviar which is rare and was once reserved for Russian, Iranian and Austrian royalty. Next in quality is the medium-sized, gray to brownish osetra (ossetra), and the last in the quality ranking is smaller, gray sevruga caviar.