Cheap ways to impress a crowd never fall out of fashion, and describing a dish as containing “caviar” is a particularly cost-effective way — whether it’s really caviar we’re talking about or not.
Of course, real-deal caviar is salt-cured roe farmed exclusively from sturgeon. But there are plenty of other gourmet aquatic ova, especially in Japan: ever-popular ikura (salmon roe), tarako (cod roe) and even tobiko (flying fish roe).
Beyond the realm of fish eggs, “caviar” is also a term used in molecular gastronomy to describe the products of spherification, a technique that encapsulates oils and other liquids into miniature balls. This method is mainly aesthetic, with flavor profiles that usually veer away from anything approaching authentic caviar’s salty and creamy characteristics.
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