Posted on 01/04/2006 9:59:14 PM PST by F14 Pilot
The global trade in legal caviar has been stopped by the United Nations, leaving gourmands gasping and conservationists cheering.
"It's not good news. . . . I have clients who don't care about the price, they need legal caviar," said Mark Omidi, owner of the Toronto-based importer Caviar Centre. "It's the most prestigious commodity."
Alarmed by the plunging number of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, a UN agency dedicated to preserving endangered species has put the onus on wild-caviar exporting nations to prove that their conservation methods can protect the fish stocks.
In the meantime, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has refused to publish this year's export quotas for caviar and other sturgeon products.
"There is now no legal caviar from wild fish," CITES secretariat spokesman Juan Carlos Vasquez told The Guardian.
Under the convention, caviar-importing nations must ensure imports are from legal sources, and they must police domestic processing and repackaging plants.
The cost of beluga, the finest caviar, was expected to double in Canada this year to more than $200 for 30 grams, insiders said. Yesterday's clampdown on exports could lead to soaring prices of existing stock, in the rare places it is available after the holiday rush.
The news was a shock to Piers Grimsditch, assistant manager of Pusateri's Fine Foods in Toronto. He said it was "a big loss" after the store's inability to get wild caviar for Christmas shoppers forced it to rely on farmed product from France.
"We've been promised it and promised it. Finally we had to get the French," Mr. Grimsditch said. "It's a nice caviar, but there is a difference. . . We're so used to having our beluga, our sevruga, our osetra."
But the decision was good news to Sue Alexander, spokeswoman for the highly regarded C restaurant in Vancouver. She said that concerns about sustainability had led their chef to take wild caviar off the menu two years ago, and that the UN move had simply confirmed their choice.
"There have been people who missed it, because it is seen as a delicacy," she conceded. "We're finding alternatives and . . . it gives our servers a great opportunity to talk to diners."
The UN agency said yesterday that years of lowered quotas had not taken into account illegal fishing.
Mr. Omidi blamed countries that had allowed the black market to flourish. He praised Iran for its fisheries controls but said it was a different story elsewhere on the landlocked Caspian Sea.
"The Russian side is the only loose side of the Caspian," he said last night. "We have to pay the price for their lack of capability to control their harvest and export of caviar."
The World Wildlife Fund welcomed news of the UN ban in a statement, saying that the sturgeon population has been in "dire straits" for years now.
Mr. Omidi was optimistic, though, that the move would help struggling stocks recover and lead to greater quality in farmed caviar. So far, he said, top-notch farmed caviar can make even experts pause, but lower-grade examples can be identified right away.
The 1960's spawned a drug craze that ballooned until drugs too, were banned. Once the laws banning sale and use of drugs went into effect, drug use in the US ceased overnight.
Gun deaths in major US cities too have been stopped. New York city and Washington, DC are two determined sticklers where gun ownership has been curtailed. Both cities saw a resurgence of comity and serenity when guns were banned and the deaths stopped.
Yes, ban world trafficking in caviar. Six billion people will agree, voluntarily to comply. The fish will be saved because no one will buy another ounce of caviar.
Actually, prohibition worked. It limited consumption of alcohol by 60%.
It did give rise to a black market and created a host of other crimes in the process, but it did limit the consumption of alcohol. I don't know how this misinformation keeps being spread, but look it up. Consumption went down.
I don't remeber, where did the UN get authority to ban anything?
Good question
don't look at me for an answer!
And they got those figures how? Did they include all the moonshine my ex-father in law (and thousands like him) made in his still in Canada near the U.S. border? He peddled it on a regular route to distributors all across northern Montana.
There was so much illegal, unaccounted-for booze being guzzled during Prohibition there's no way anyone could possibly have kept track of it. It's like getting hard numbers on the amount of illegal marijuana, crystal meth and other drugs being consumed right now. No one knows how much -- any published figures are just a bunch of WAGs.
BTW, thanks for the advice, I did look it up. You can find my results here .
The study states
Since data on both the price and quantity of alcohol are unavailable during the Prohibition period, it is not possible to estimate Prohibition's impact on either the supply or demand for alcohol, it would be interesting to find out where your figure of 60% derives.
Actually, the conclusion goes on to say, The overall conclusion of the paper is that Prohibition exerted a modest and possibly even a positive effect on alcohol consumption. That seems to work against your hypotheses that prohibition decreased alcohol consumption.
OK. BAN the UN.
Bill Clinton told them they could. He wants to be SecGen doncha know.
Well, knowing the high esteem that the Russians have for edicts issued by the United Nations, I am sure that they will stop selling caviar immediately and give up all that hard currency.
/sarcasm
Yep.......I'm sure this will work almost as well as the international bans on opiates, marijuana, machine guns, child porn......and embezzlement from the revenue of the people of Iraq.
They will no doubt attempt to confiscate all the caviar in the world... And keep it for their own consumption. Many of those UN 'diplomats' LIVE on caviar and champagne. they would starve to death if cut off from it.
They ban caviar but they let the president of Iran say that the Jews did not suffer. Typical
All your eggs are belong to us!
"something smells fishy...."
Does anybody care about a caviar ban really ?
this stuff is expensive as hell and tastes like fish.
There's cheaper things that smell alike.
No biggy. We'll just get in the car and drive on over to Brighton Beach. My boy Ivan will hook us up with a dime bag. We'll have to watch out for five-oh, I hope they're not running a sting. Sure, it's risky, but I'm tweaking. If we get caught, I'm sure we can get some once we're inside Rikers. It'll all work out.
According to official records? What was the source?
Home brewing was a regular technique prior to prohibition and continues to follow it's centuries old tradition today. As best I as I know, our kin's response to prohibition was "Yeah, that's nice" and they drank anyways. I doubt many people had much more regard than that, and if they knew how to brew beer, which was a step above pouring water, prohibition didn't change much of anything.
A source would be nice.
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