Excerpt from Yearbook for Feinschmeckers, 2005
(Author Sune Rosforth)

The Lucky Sister of Beluga

The mighty beluga is dying, and her legendary eggs are often only a weak reflection of the experiences of taste of the past. Seruga- and oscietre caviare are still extremely tasteful, but are more and more difficult to catch, because other wild sturgeons in the Caspian Sea are threatened by extermination.
They have good reason to be envious of their Siberian little sister, who live safely and well in farms in France. The sturgeon baerii provides caviare of a quality, which equals Iranian sevruga - quite without the after-taste of a bad conscience.

The introduction (of the article) is followed by a whole page picture of caviare roe, and - on the next page - yet another.

Then follows on the next right hand page a description of Oscietre, a picture of an inspection of a berii sturgeon, illustrations of the Rossini
caviare tins, and a lengthy telling of the sturgeon's history, leading up to:

The humble baerii beats the mighty beluga
Rene Redzepi, cook and co-owner of the restaurant "NOMA", takes a soft bone spoon with a little portion of eggs to his lips and stops. The intense aromas waft to the nose. Slowly he opens his mouth and let the eggs hit his tongue.

On the table in front of him are cups with sevruga, oscietre, and beluga caviare; as well as a cup with a type of caviare, known by only the few - baerii.

Which caviare is in which cup, neither he or the three others around the table know. This is a little experiment, which may confirm, what Søllerød Kro (famous top level restaurant) north of Copenhagen and "The French Laundry" (perhaps the worlds best restaurant) north of San Francisco have concluded already.

When notes are finally compared, some things are quite clear. The big eggs of the Beluga caviare are lightly mashed, have unclean aroma, are rather fishy and end up with an uncharming sour-sweetness. This is the only disappointment of the tasting, and is probably because the fish has been caught too young.

The other three are all outstanding. The small yellow brown eggs of the oscietre caviare provide an intense and distinctive with aroma of fresh nuts.

Sevruga and baerii caviare seem very much alike. Both have small, dark eggs. By taste baerii is mostly like oscietre.

The master cook and the other tasters may, surprisingly, confirm each other in the conclusion that baerii caviare is of a quality, which may, in full, compare with Caspian sturgeons. Surprisingly, because baerii is an outsider of little renown, i.e. a Siberian sturgeon, which has never been near the Caspian Sea, but is is farmed in France.
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Then follows yet another whole page photo of caviare eggs, and on the following page is an illustrated description of how sturgeons are caught and treated + yet another picture of Rossini Caviar tins with contents.

The article ends with a reference to the purchase in America of caviare:
Jacob Marsing-Rossini, who owns Rossini Caviar, and is reputedly the new caviare king of Denmark, following the closure of Caviar House, says that the Americans have started selling caviare of a much higher quality than before; it is a special craft to treat American caviare, in part because the eggs must be salted with greater care, but they are getting better at it, and I (says Jacob Rossini) believe that in a few years' time they will know how.