Caviar is the lightly salt-cured roe of sturgeon — glossy grey-to-black pearls, each a single egg the size of a small peppercorn, that release a clean burst of brine, butter, fresh cream and a nutty-marine richness when pressed against the palate. It is the most prestigious of all seafood, the benchmark luxury garnish: lightly salted in the malossol style and served chilled, ideally off a non-metal spoon, on blini with crème fraîche, on toast points, over eggs or oysters, or simply on its own. Strictly, true caviar is sturgeon roe alone; the salted eggs of salmon, trout, lumpfish, paddlefish and other fish are properly called roe rather than caviar, though the word is loosely applied to almost any cured fish egg.