Fishy business

Paiva has a handson encounter with a young sturgeon at Qiandao Lake in Quzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A Chinese caviar farm has become a prominent player in the global gourmet business, producing five kinds of roe for diners with a taste for luxury. Mike Peters reports.

When Portuguese chef Deivid Paiva goes to the markets that supply his restaurant, he usually doesn't come back with his white tunic smeared with blood.

But Paiva's recent market visit is nothing ordinary: The newly arrived chef who just took over the kitchen at Beijing's Grill 79 is checking out the sturgeon at China's biggest caviar production center. Sturgeon are prehistoric giants that have evolved from the Triassic era some 245 to 208 million years ago. The sharklike creatures can live for a century and weigh 1,000 kilograms. At this fish farm, the late-maturing fish are nurtured from seven to 15 years, depending on the species, before they are harvested for their culinary black gold.

A small group of food writers joins Paiva and his boss, executive chef Johnston Ang from the China World Summit Wing hotel, to visit Hangzhou Qiandaohu Xunlong Sci-tech Company at Qiandao Lake (Thousand Island Lake) in Quzhou, Zhejiang province. In that vast manmade lake developed for hydro power, the company says it produces 60 tons of fish roe annually - about 30 percent of the global caviar business.