Few foods carry the cachet of caviar, the salted eggs of various species of sturgeon (Acipenser).

The term for all fish eggs is roe, but only sturgeon eggs can be called caviar. The type of sturgeon usually correlates to the original geography or physical characteristics of the species no matter where the fish is raised. Thus osetra (Acipenser Gueldenstaedtii) is from Russian Sturgeon; Acipenser Baerii is from Siberian Sturgeon; and Acipenser Transmontanus is from Pacific Sturgeon or White Sturgeon.

For a long time, caviar production centered on the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. When overfishing endangered those wild populations, the U.S. and many other countries banned the import of wild sturgeon eggs. Luckily, sturgeon exists in other areas of the northern hemisphere, including the U.S. Much of it is farmed and it is often excellent. Recently, chef Eric Ripert of the world-renowned New York City seafood restaurant Le Bernardin noted in “America’s Test Kitchen” that farmed caviar was more consistent in quality and had a milder, cleaner, fresher profile than the stronger, fishier, more assertive wild-caught Russian products he’d eaten in decades past.

There are many other fish in the sea beyond sturgeon that yield delicious—and often colorful—roe: salmon, trout, whitefish, bowfin, masago, and the pressed, cured, and dried mullet roe known as bottarga.