The other black gold

SO IT SHOULD be a relief to those whose household budgets aspire to include a modest scoop of caviar that Osetra, whose grains are slightly smaller than Beluga, is now being farmed successfully on the west coast of the United States. Though not for sale at peanut prices, domestic caviar is back on the market thanks to pioneers like adventurous Swedes Mats and Dafne Engstrom, whose Tsar Nicoulai company produces California Estate Osetra, and the Stolt Sea Farm, whose farm-raised white sturgeon eggs are for sale in four grades of "Sterling" caviar--Classic, Premium, Royal Black and Imperial.

Stolt Sea Farm in Elverta, California, is part of a colossal worldwide fish-farming enterprise, Stolt Sea Farm Holdings, Ltd. A company employing 2,300 in 23 offices from Scotland to Chile, it produces, processes, sells and distributes, depending on the country, 60,100 tons of Atlantic salmon and salmon trout, quantities of farmed turbot, halibut, tuna, sole, tilapia and, for more than 15 years, nearly 4,000 pounds of caviar from three separate sturgeon farms in California.

By contrast, Tsar Nicoulai, run by Mats and Dafne Engstrom, is a small affair. But the Engstroms could probably be crowned the czar and czarina of the revived American caviar business. Exporting crayfish from the Sacramento River to Sweden in 1975, they heard through their crayfishermen, who also fished for their own pleasure, that sturgeon could be found in some of California's rivers. When pressed by the Engstroms to describe what they did with the roes, they revealed that, being as revolted by "fish jam" as the British sailors, they were either tossing the precious sturgeon roe back into the water, or feeding it to their cats. Horrified and excited, the Engstroms persuaded them to part with their next catch, and with thirty pounds-worth to hand, set about teaching themselves the art of caviar-making. It took two years. But no sooner did they discover the knack than they learned they were breaking the law. It was illegal to sell the caviar, since the wild white sturgeon is classified in California and throughout the United States as a game fish. This categorization prevents its commercial sale or the sale of its by-products.

Determined not to be thwarted from their goal, the Engstroms assembled samples of their precious wares and flew with copious bottles of Napa Valley champagne to Washington to lobby for funds to research farming California sturgeon for its caviar. Senators and congressmen in the Capitol were impressed by their enthusiasm and more so by their product. "It was a helluva party", Mats Engstrom reminisces, "a smashing success." Over $800,000 was granted immediately for research at the University of California at Davis, fondly known as the Foodie Uni. And in 1983, the Engstroms' caviar farm was in business.

By late spring of 1984, the reputation of their caviar had spread to Julia Childs, who invited the couple onto her television program. While they were on the air, the sturgeon farm, along with its entire stock of fish, burned down. Though the farm was rebuilt, they fell out with their investors, who wanted to farm the sturgeon for their meat alone. So in 1985, at the invitation of the Chinese government, the Engstroms packed their bags and set out to the Heilongjiang River on the Sino-Soviet border (called the Amur River on the Russian side) to turn Chinese sturgeon, which grow to 2,000 pounds in weight, into a national caviar industry. The first Westerners to visit the area since 1917, they arrived in an unheated jeep in minus forty-degree weather after an 18-hour drive from the nearest city.