Caviar feasts stay in the memory. I remember one occasion when I scoffed a satisfactory quantity of the stuff with that old monster Bob Maxwell. As he wanted a favour, he was the acme of charm and encouraged me to dig in to a tin of beluga ‘given to me by President Gorbachev himself’. At that, I thought I saw the butler twitch. I gathered from others that the Gorbachev tin was in constant use for favoured guests, so there were only three conclusions. First, that Mr Gorbachev was using a sizeable proportion of Russia’s GDP to fund Bob’s entertaining. Second, that Bob had discovered the philosopher’s stone, or at least a moulin mystique, for caviar. Third, that he had a daily order from Fortnum & Mason, paid for out of the pension funds. But most Mirror pensioners were lefties, so who cares?
It is possible to enjoy the stuff in less ambiguous company. I always enjoyed travelling with my old friend and master, Julian Amery. El Amery’s wit, insights and anecdotes took one back to the pre-war era: pre-first world war, that is. He also believed in comfort. In Eastern Europe, that had two essential ingredients. The first was gipsy music. Even though these were proper Zingari, not social security addicts on stolen wheels, I was never convinced. I found it a bit over-lush. There was no dispute about the second requirement: caviar. Like Lord Byron — there were other similarities — Julian had a greater reputation in the wider Europe than at home. It was widely assumed that he had been Foreign Secretary, or Prime Minister, or both. This did nothing to inhibit the flow of caviar.
Julian lived long enough to be aware of pollution in the Volga and the Caspian. He would roll his eyes: ‘I feel sorry for you young men. Imagine — to have to live in a world without caviar.’ Fortunately, there appear to be limits to the scope of divine wrath. Even in an increasingly unsuccessful and dangerous period in world history, not everything has gone wrong. Man has learned how to farm the sturgeon.
Eyzie Cecil, another disciple of El Amery’s, has eaten more caviar and thought harder about it than any inhabitant of these islands since Julian. It helped that she lived in Moscow for some years, speaks perfect Russian, and looks like a Cossack princess. Once, some American friends of hers got into trouble: a combination of their drinking much too much and the local flat-feet seeing an opportunity for blackmail. She swooped on the cop-shop like an eagle on a dovecote. An awed Russophone witness said that she used the exalted language of Pushkin to swear like a sergeant of marines. The Muscovite police are not soft-boiled, but these surrendered immediately. One was overheard explaining the retreat: ‘You do not say no to Catherine the Great.’
Instead of leading the Pussy Rioters to victory, this striking figure has become an environmentalist. She wants to save the planet, from a shortage of caviar. In pursuit of that noble endeavour, she introduced me to a firm called Caspian Caviar. That is something of a misnomer, for they are aiming to supply farmed caviar of Caspian quality. I think that they are succeeding and so does Eyzie, whose judgment counts. We tried some Italian oscietra. I share Eyzie’s view that one should not squeeze lemon on good caviar, which only demands one additional non-alcoholic ingredient: more caviar. In this case, there was no need for lemon. Eyzie said that it was as good as a lot of beluga. Who am I to disagree? In one respect, Eyzie is unusual. She does not like drinking vodka with caviar, and served an Australian chardonnay, a 2008 Pierro from the Margaret River.
To my surprise, that worked. The wine was excellent, with a restraint and sophistication not universal in Oz chardonnays (or Oz anything). I shall revisit both the wine and the eggs, with further reports to follow.
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