Caviar Emptor

Welcome A. transmontanus!

The sturgeon, one of the biggest, ugliest and most primitive of all fish, would be only an evolutionary oddity were it not for the million little black globules nestled in the average female's ovaries. If Mama is called Acipenser huso and comes from the Black Sea or the Caspian, her eggs may wind up in the U.S. as Iranian or Russian beluga caviar worth $200 a pound. The good news is that federal aid, abetted by academic enterprise, private initiative and a dash of Iron Curtain intrigue, may soon put this exquisite fishy fudge on middle-income toast.

The bearer of these tidings is A. transmontanus, the big Pacific sturgeon. A sister under the skin to the Black Sea species, it runs naturally up California's Sacramento River. (In the 19th century, sturgeon were so plentiful in East Coast rivers that the U.S. exported vast quantities of caviar to Europe.) These overlooked aristocrats have been extracted from the stream by the University of California at Davis, which plans to breed them in vast ponds like those used in the South to grow the plebeian catfish. The Le Carre element enters with Serge Doroshov, 42, who helped develop the advanced Soviet aquacultural, or fish-farming, program; he defected to the U.S. last year and joined the Davis staff. Among other things, Academician Doroshov discovered a way to speed up the sturgeon's maturity cycle, from 15 to 20 years to four to six years. At Davis, internationally renowned for its research into food and wine, officials expect to receive federal money for a $500,000 pilot hatchery.

Capitalism swam in with Swedish-born Mats and Daphne Engstrom, whose California Sunshine Inc. has worked for two years to make caviar pearls of Davis-raised A. transmontanus eggs. One day last week the California consortium transformed the U.S. Senate's Mike Mansfield Room into a caviarteria. The guests enthusiastically downed 20 Ibs. of caviar and 30 Ibs. of smoked sturgeon as well as 70 bottles of California champagne. A caviar connoisseur from TIME, Correspondent Gregory Wierzynski, was on hand; on a scale of 1 to 10, he "rated the West Coast product at 8. The price? If you crave caviar, you shouldn't have to ask, but it may cost from one-third to one-half as much as the imported stuff.

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