It looks exactly like caviar, smells almost like caviar and tastes -- well, nothing like caviar. More like seaweed, actually. Which is what Cavi-Art, a caviar substitute making its way into U.S. stores and restaurants, is made from. Produced in Denmark, the seaweed caviar has the "same texture, feeling and burst" of the real thing, said Jan Petersen, senior trade adviser for the Danish Trade Commission in Montreal, which is working with three U.S. distributors to introduce it to American consumers. "The thing you don't have is the fishy taste." So, what's the point of faux roe?
At least it's fat-free
For one, say distributors, it's cholesterol- and fat-free and has less sodium than caviar. Its color doesn't bleed onto food, as happens with the dye in lumpfish caviar. The product, which can keep for three years, also is cheap -- two factors some say may be attractive to big food service operators. Cavi-Art costs $8 for 3.5 ounces vs. $700 for a 4-ounce tin of prized beluga caviar sold by New York-based distributor Paramount Caviar. And it doesn't further strain the threatened wild sturgeon, from which true caviar is harvested. In January, a U.N. agency announced a temporary halt of caviar exports from the main caviar- producing nations along the Caspian and Black Seas because of "serious population declines" of sturgeon. "It's not going to taste exactly like caviar from sturgeon, but it was never meant to be that," said Amy Aimani, vice president at Paramount, who describes the flavor as "briny." A Denmark man named Jens Moller created the seaweed caviar by accident, while doing an experiment for his kids on "how seaweed could be used to capture enzymes," his company's Web site says. Instead of making his point, Moller's experiment yielded an unexpected result: small beads that "dropped out" of the seaweed.
Works well as a garnish
Moller began marketing Cavi-Art in Europe in the late 1990s. Its label reads, "To be used as caviar." Technically, the term "caviar" may only be used to describe the eggs of sturgeon, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. So far, Cavi-Art is only available for sale online and in a small grocery chain near Seattle. But at least one Chicago chef is using the imitation eggs. Eugenio Paladino, sous chef at an upscale, Hyatt-owned retirement home in Glenview, has used Cavi-Art for about three months. He read about it on the Internet and sought it out from a local purveyor, Wabash Seafood. Paladino says the fake stuff works well as a garnish for salmon entrees and oysters Rockefeller and is great for his bottom line. But he draws the line at serving it by itself, "as you would serve caviar. That would just be too apparent. . . that it's not actually caviar."
