- published: 14 Mar 2012
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Caviar is processed, salted, non-fertilized sturgeon roe marketed as a luxury food. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, caviar is a product made from salt-cured fish-eggs of the Acipenseridae family. The roe can be "fresh" (non-pasteurized) or pasteurized, with pasteurization reducing its culinary and economic value.
Traditionally the term caviar refers only to roe from wild sturgeon in the Caspian and Black Sea (Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga caviars). Depending on the country, caviar may also be used to describe the roe of other fish such as salmon, steelhead, trout, lumpfish, whitefish, and other species of sturgeon.
Based on flavor, size, consistency and colour, prices for caviar range from $8,000-$16,000 per kg[citation needed]. Caviar is marketed worldwide as a delicacy and is eaten as a garnish or a spread.
According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, roe from any fish not belonging to the Acipenseriformes species (including Acipenseridae, or sturgeon stricto sensu, and Polyodontidae or paddlefish) are not caviar, but "substitutes of caviar." This position is also adopted by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the United States Customs Service, and the Republic of France.