Re "California caviar is big fish on this side of pond," Business, Jan. 18
Saying that "fish eggs are now being harvested" is a euphemism for slitting open the belly of a living creature, in this case a 7- or 8-year-old female sturgeon, scooping out her eggs while alive and selling those eggs for as much as $2,757 per kilogram so that humans can ingest what Chef Hubert Keller calls "the ultimate indulgence."
For those who have acquired a taste for these fish eggs, the manner of obtaining the eggs appears to have been of little concern. This is consistent with the attitudes of the indulgent upper class.
I wonder if those who find caviar such an attractive indulgence have ever watched a female fish having her ovaries slit open — and sometimes being returned to the water in the hope that she can recover enough to reproduce — or dying in the process of her eggs being "harvested"?
Sylvia Lewis Gunning
Thousand Oaks
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