caviar dreams

A couple of days ago an executive in our department sent a big gift basket to the people in my office. It contained a lot of the typical stuff: biscotti, cheese and crackers, summer sausage, chocolate, etc. One part of that et cetera that I did not expect was a jar of caviar.

I have made it no secret that I am not a seafood person. I will eat seafood if I have to, but when I do eat it I typically end up choking it down. If given the choice I will almost always avoid even the few types of seafood that I do not dislike.

I was faced with the question of whether I would have some caviar so that I could say I have had it, or I would avoid the seafood because I am not a fan. I resisted for a while, but reasoned that I would probably not have many chances to have free caviar in my life. After dragging my feet on the idea, I finally scraped some on a cracker and ate it. I do not know if all caviar tastes the same, but this caviar tasted exactly like what it was—salty, raw fish.

This all reminded me of a question that I have always had. Do people really like caviar, or do people just say they like it because it is a high-class food? Furthermore, is caviar considered high-class food because people with sophisticated palates enjoy it or just because it is difficult and expensive to acquire? It blows my mind that someone somewhere once decided that collecting fish eggs and selling them at exorbitant prices as food would work as a business plan. It further blows my mind that the plan actually did work. There truly is no accounting for taste.