ETIQUETTE

Etiquette

CASPIAN GOLD: CAVIAR AS IT IS

A casket full of precious advice

Are there any rules on where and how it is proper to partake of the generous gift of life that is black caviar? Oh, certainly! The best way to true savor it was established long ago and it is to serve it with elegant simplicity. The most important thing is to savor the life itself

When serving black caviar, the most reliable method is to trust the fundamental scientific facts learned from the good old university. If you lack the leisure time to refresh your curriculum try to adhere to three basic rules. First, the colder the better. Second, you may touch the caviar with anything, even a plastic spoon would do, just not with metal! The only acceptable exception is gold. Third, salt and sourness are offenses against the taste.

RULE № 1

Ice, mother-of-pearl, and... a pinch of common sense

A warm kiss a la russe

RULE № 2

Alike to noble beverages, caviar is to be savored. Take our word for it, the experience is so intimate that it would serve you better to indulge it alone before proposing roe to your best friends and dear guests. Heed our advice and you might easily pass for an expert!

Ready? Now, shut the door. Let’s get down to it!

To match black caviar with vodka is a well esteemed Russian tradition among the connoisseurs and aesthetes.

Generally, the choice of a drink is limited to a triad – excellent vodka (ice-cold), the best of Champaign (when in doubt, choose Brut), and a dry white wine from a few blessed places under the Sun. The wines are to be fiercely cooled, ‘to a needle’ as it was called in the best aristocratic households of Imperial Russia.

RULE № 3

Champagne or vodka?

A million worth dinner

RULE № 4

Perhaps, it is an exaggeration, but if a master-chef in a first grade restaurant proposes a dinner for a thousand dollars – rest assured there will be black caviar served! You’d, probably, have to double the bill and share the delight, though, for enjoying such delicacies without a companion is alike to making love in drear solitude.