Day Twenty-Five: I don't have a problem with fish, or eggs, but....

For our challenge today we had very little time as I was off out with my lovely friend for a spa night (I know, posh!!), and so we needed something speedy and easy. We therefore decided to do something we'd been putting off for two weeks - we decided to try a new food we've never eaten before. 

I don't have a problem with the concept of eating anything edible, as I've written about in another post, but there are some things that take my fancy more than others. For example, I would try eating something like sheep intestines, but more just for the experience and the story than for any pleasure I expect to get from tasting such things. However, the idea of trying a new tropical fruit or an interesting meat like crocodile or something is infinitely more appealing. And so why, faced with the entire of Tesco from which to make a selection, did I pick up a £3.48 jar of Black Lumpfish Caviar?!

I don't have a problem with getting cheaper, budget versions of more expensive foods; in fact, I search them out most of the time - a shopping technique I call 'not-being-a-sucker-and-buying-expensive-brands-just-for-the-name-when-they-taste-exactly-the-same-and-are-probably-in-fact-the-same-product.' Catchy. And a very popular technique, I assume. But another assumption is that there are many people, myself included, who, despite abiding by the aforementioned technique, have certain exceptions to the rule. Personal examples include toilet roll, baked beans and pate (for, I would hope, obvious reasons.) I should have perused this mental list in my mind before buying the caviar, because caviar is most certainly on said list. Who buys budget caviar? (Yes okay okay) Why oh why does it even exist? It's a luxury item, commanding a ridiculously high price tag (I've just found an online fine food retailer selling 30g of beluga caviar for £122.50), and as such should not even have a budget version. 

I don't have a problem with the concept of eating fish eggs, as I alluded to above. I am a fish friend, not a fish fiend. In fact I used to have a Saturday job working on a fish counter (maybe this means I'm a fish fiend then, actually - would a fish friend spend their Saturdays slicing open and gutting poor, dead salmon and mackerels?) And so my logic was, I like fish, I like eggs, I'll probably like fish eggs. My logic, it turns out, was wrong. I may like fish, and I may like eggs, but I do not like fish eggs. Well, to be more accurate, I do not like £3.48 Black Lumpfish fish eggs. I mean, Lumpfish?! Lumpfish?? It even sounds revolting. 

I don't have a problem with small food items which pop in my mouth, which may sound like an irrelevant comment but my good friend Jamie does suffer with such an affliction - peas are a no-go, for example. So the idea of tiny, popping eggs was not too repulsive, but I just found that they were too small, too poppy, too black and too fishy. Both of us tried the most minuscule sample of the caviar, just on its own, and were quite repelled by the fishiness and the poppy nature of the eggs. 

I like to think that were I to ever try proper, expensive, baluga caviar, such as I've mentioned above, I would like it. I'm sure it's bigger, tastier, and less like the flavour of the cheap fish paste my mum used to use to make sandwiches for our packed lunches. I mean, it must command such a high price tag for a reason, surely? Or is it just the case that anyone with that much money to spend on fish eggs has lost their better sense of judgement and therefore buys caviar, despite it being disgusting, because that's what rich people do. Maybe one day I'll have tons of money, and not much sense left, and I'll spend silly amounts on posh caviar, and then I can find out. I'll let you know!