I was introduced to Stoli, caviar, and Russian black bread when I was a Soviet studies major in ‘74. I’m not sure where you can find it anymore, but I’m pretty sure that the Russian studies bylaws state that you must eat raw fish eggs and get hammered, at least, once with actual Russians.
The traditional Russian black bread (called “cheeoorrneeya khkhkhleeeeva” in the Motherland) was not hard to figure out. It’s just like, well, our black bread, only not as easy to pronounce.
Stolichnaya vodka (“Sto-lich-na-ya vod-ka”), on the other hand, was a no brainer, as long as you observe the longitude rule, which goes that: because of the considerable damage that hard liquor and hot weather can do to your brain cells and police record, vodka should be diluted as the inverse percent of your longitude, which, presumably, means that at the north pole you can drink it straight since there’s no one to get into a knife fight with there except nerdy scientists and monsters.
Caviar (“eeeek-ra”) was the real puzzle.
I can not think of what unspeakable deprivations inflicted humankind enough to force them to consider eating raw fish eggs. Like the French frog legs and snails, and any disgusting sea critter trapped in bug pots along the Coast States, it must’ve taken massive quantities of pure grain alcohol to keep down … or explain.
I have tried to play the sophisticate in life by occasionally buying an expensive two ounces of the stuff to eat, while trying to explain to myself why it shouldn’t creep me out. I mean, Russian cosmonauts take toothpaste tubes full of the stuff into space with them to smear on crackers.
First, the saltiness of the taste hits you like a mouthful of seawater. Then the rubbery consistency of stuff attacks your gums. And, if you let it sit too long at room temperature, the little black eggs start hopping around. I know they’re unfertilized. But it doesn’t help with the creepiness factor.
Then, during one billowy hot Santa Ana night in Los Angeles, it hit me (since I couldn’t leave the house), and I realized just about the perfect very nearly kosher hors d’oeuvre on the planet.
Do this:
Take one matzo cracker (unsalted), about .08 ounces.
Use a soft spreadable cheese, like a Brie, camembert, or blue cheese, and smear about .10 ounces atop the cracker.
Buy about two ounces of Romanoff’s Black Whitefish caviar (under $10.00) and dollop about .11 ounces (a butter knife tip-full) of that onto the cheese.
Top it off with HALF a Spanish olive (the generic kind straight from the grocery; the pimento gives it a nice color), which should weight about .03 ounces.
Cost: 60 cents to 75 cents per canapé, depending on how much cheese and roe you slather on.
Black Whitefish Caviar best approximates the more expensive Beluga and can be bought at about one tenth the price at most supermarkets. Its package size also limits how many crackers you can paint. But two ounces of Romanoff’s ($9.00 some places) will last for about eighteen servings.
Take care not to use a cheese smelling too footy, or dusky, or musky, or funky, or pungent, as it will overwhelm the subtle flavors released by the other ingredients.
If strict Islamic or kosher diets are de rigueur, soft goat cheese can be substituted for the cheese, just take care to observe the flavor rules above for the French spread. Chevre Goat Milk Cheese is kosher and was found at the local grocery in a 5.3 ounce-package (ten servings) for $5.80. Deal is, we goyim, or infidels, shy away from goats because their amorous barnyard antics are awful difficult to explain to the children. And avoid cream cheese. The flavor must be subtle, not non-existent.
I’ve experimented with other crackers, but matzo has the firm but-not-too-firm base to support the heavy construction of the pâte. (Melba is too hard; expensive gourmet crackers too crumbly.) Matzo—unleavened bread familiar to Christians as the Sacrament—has a subtle wheat-y taste that reinforces (not overwhelms) the orchestra of other flavors. Third, and most important, matzo is unsalted, a factor which here leads to a major caveat about the high sodium content of the thing.
People on low sodium diets might take care not to overindulge this concoction, as four (4) canapés will fill 20 percent of one’s recommended daily salt allowance. That’s right. Twenty percent! More on this later.
All told, in terms of current cost breakdowns, one Hors d’Oeuvre del Ray comes to …
Matzo Cracker: .08 ounces, five cents.
Brie: .10 ounces, seven cents.
Whitefish Caviar: .11 ounces, forty-eight cents.
1/2 Spanish Olive: .03 ounces, one cent.
… about sixty-one cents per serving.
Weights were measured on a postage scale. Nutrients were calculated from total product weight and package nutrition label; the following amounts (and percent daily allowances) are for FOUR servings:
Per four servings: 122 calories; 47 calories from fat; 5.55 grams total fat (8.5 percent); 1.6 grams saturated fat (8 percent); 0 grams trans fat (0 percent); 55 milligrams cholesterol (18.2 percent); 492 milligrams sodium (20.6 percent); 500 milligrams fiber (2 percent); 12 grams carbohydrates (4 percent); 500 milligrams sugars (1 percent); 4.5 grams protein (8 percent); 20milligrams potassium (0.5 percent); Iron (3 percent).
Again, note the staggering 492 milligram, 20.6 percent sodium bomb delivered by only four canapés; as well take note that four also provides nearly 20 percent of one’s daily cholesterol allowance. Caviar adds the lion’s share, 13 and 15 percent more sodium and cholesterol.
Calculations above were for four servings, enough to satisfy one’s pallet; any numbers less than that are fuzzy and unreliable. But if you’re curious about a single serving, just divide by four.
Though delicious, my last problem with the concoction is that it just looks messy. So I’ll leave it to you Martha Stewarts out there to figure out how to make the thing look pretty. Rachael Ray would just slap it together like me, but would undoubtedly find some way to involve E.V.O.O.
Bon c’est.
