Martha Stewart's Favorite Toppings For Luxury Baked Potatoes
Leave it to Martha Stewart to turn a baked potato, which is just about the plainest comfort food you'll ever come across, into a luxury meal that cost $125 per ounce. Let's set the scene. In an Instagram post, Ms. Stewart can be seen doing food prep for a Mother's Day lunch. Before her on the counter, a spread of five baked potatoes languished, waiting to be dressed to serve to the handful of people who'd join her. The spuds would get the usual suspects, butter and sour cream, before the denouement unfolded: a heaping spoonful of Black Diamond Golden Osetra Caviar.
The food and lifestyle mogul offered commentary along the way. Vermont Creamery unsalted butter is "really good!" she said. It must melt into the potato to make everything just right. A big dollop of sour cream followed. Stewart opted for Breakstone's brand. It's a go-to for her that sees frequent use in her meals. And bonus: it's all-natural with great flavor and texture and provides the kind of hot-cold contrast she loves on baked potatoes. About the final act, the cured osetra (or sturgeon) roe, she had this to say: "For those of you who love caviar like I love caviar, a big spoon of Diamond Ossetra right on top."
What is caviar?
Martha Stewart's Mother's Day treat was the roe, or the unfertilized eggs of Russian ossetra, a type of sturgeon. The eggs of the ossetra — also osetra – have been cured. In the strictest sense, caviar comes from the sturgeon fish. However, just as the word "Champagne" is now used to denote all sparkling wines and not just real actual Champagne, so, too, does the word "caviar" represent the cured fish eggs from any type of fish, like trout or salmon.
The food of peasants caviar is not. People associate it with luxury, which means even the least expensive kinds still cost a pretty penny. American white sturgeon roe, for example, will set you back about $80 an ounce, according to MarthaStewart.com (compared to the $125 an ounce that the golden ossetra cost Stewart). But whatever the type of caviar, you'll find it in beaded clumps that come in an array of colors. Black is a common one, but it can be golden green, red or orange, and even gray.
As far as taste is concerned, many describe caviar as having a slightly nutty flavor, but there can be other flavor notes, too, such as sweet, buttery, or creamy. Most fish roe also tastes of the seas. That is, it's a flavor of fish and brine. This is to be expected. It's the salting and curing process that turns the fish eggs into caviar. Finally, anyone who's ever eaten caviar knows that the tiny bubbles of fish roe burst when you bite into them.
Why caviar costs so much
True caviar comes from sturgeons. As a species, wild sturgeon are on the endangered species list. While sturgeon farms now exist, as with most rare things, the wild and harder-to-get version of the prize always costs the most money. So, too, is it with sturgeon. And while it may seem that Stewart's choice of roe is spendy at $125 an ounce, caviar that's even more expensive exists. The eggs from an albino sturgeon cost around $34,000 an ounce (per All Recipes) in Iran.
It also doesn't help that sturgeons require a lot of time to mature. It can take them between 8 and 20 years to reach full maturity, and given that only half of the population, the female half, can lay eggs, that makes the roe all the rarer.
Additionally, due to the rarity of the animal, the export of some caviar — beluga, specifically — has been banned by the United Nations. The ban affects the Caspian and Black Seas region of the world, where much of beluga caviar is found. That region faces problems with overfishing. Ninety percent of the sturgeon there have been fished, with the remainder being an unhealthy lot. What is left is mostly male because fishermen have illegally kept egg-laying females. Finally, while it's possible to take the eggs from live fish, it's faster and more efficient the kill the fish to collect the eggs, which contributes to the cost and the endangered species designation of sturgeon.