Edition: U.S. / Global

Caviar: Black Gold In America

Published: May 9, 1990

IT was at the exclusive Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs that Frank Hale had his first taste of caviar. The year was 1964 and he was working as a busboy. He was standing in the kitchen when the chef came over with a cracker. ''I spit it out,'' recalled Mr. Hale, the 50-year-old son of a Baptist minister, unashamed to say in his Southern twang that he could not understand why anyone would pay through the nose for fish eggs.

But life being what it is, today Mr. Hale is one of the most respected makers of American caviar. Some of the roe he processes comes from fish caught in the Tennessee River. ''Chattanooga beluga,'' he calls it: bluish gray eggs that come from the paddlefish, a strange-looking boneless bottom fish with no gills and an eponymous paddle-shaped snout.

He is one of a handful of independent caviar makers who are part of a little known, highly secretive and increasingly beleaguered cottage industry that is a crucial part of the estimated $6 million a year American caviar business.

Russian caviar still outsells fresh American caviar by about two to one, according to wholesalers in the business. But at this time of year the freshest caviar comes right from America's own waters, the Tennessee River and other tributaries of the Mississippi. The roe of four kinds of fish make up this so-called American sturgeon caviar, of which more than half comes from the paddlefish or ''spoonbill sturgeon.'' (The paddlefish, which weighs 60 to 100 pounds and produces roe from October to May, is not a sturgeon but rather a cousin.) The American roe, specifically that of the paddlefish, is similar in color and size to Russian sevruga, but is generally saltier and less complex in flavor, many connisseurs agree.

''It's like comparing a French chardonnay and an American one,'' said Gerald Stein, a New York wholesaler of both American and Russian caviars. ''They are both good. They're just different.''

A pound of the best paddlefish roe - regarded as one of the best of the American sturgeon caviars - retails for $80 to $140, depending on quality. The best Russian sevruga, the least expensive of the Caspian Sea caviars, retails for about $180 a pound. While some specialty food shops like Zabar's in New York do not stock the fresh American roe because it is not ''true caviar from the Caspian Sea,'' as a Zabar's spokesman put it, there are many others, like Macy's Cellar, that do. The American roe is popular with chefs, caterers and others who want to serve fresh roe but are conscious of cost.

''In dollars and cents it is so much less expensive and most people do not know the difference,'' said Joe Babbington, who owns Mr. Babbington's, a caterer on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

There was a time when the United States was a leading producer of caviar. At the turn of the century sturgeon was so abundant in the Hudson River that it was called Albany beef and its eggs were served free at blue-collar bars with a nickel glass of beer. But over the years pollution and overfishing killed off the fish and with it the craft of making caviar.

It was not until 1979, with the embargo of Iranian goods because of the hostage crisis and a boycott of Soviet products over the invasion of Afghanistan, that the American caviar business took off once again, setting off a gold rush for people like Mr. Hale.

He is among a small and fiercely competitive group of individuals who have helped bring the American caviar business back to the fore. They have perfected the process of making caviar and provided a boon to commercial fishermen in the area, who may get 20 cents a pound for fish they catch but can sell the roe for as much as $35 a pound.

Mr. Hale oversees a small cadre of fishermen posted in waters in and around Chattanooga. He has taught them how to process the roe, which they then bring to him to be packed and sold to wholesalers. At this time of year a fisherman can earn $500 or more on a good day.

''Can you imagine getting 18 to 20 cents for something and then getting $30 to $40?'' asked Annette Smith who, like other commercial fishermen, fittingly call paddlefish eggfish.

But environmentalists and sport fishermen are seeking to stop commercial fishing for paddlefish because they fear the stock is being depleted, and some states have imposed restrictions on what some investigators say are sales of roe from fish caught in waters closed to fishing. As a result the caviar business is becoming increasingly fraught with inconvenience, fear and paranoia.

Mississippi and Alabama, which border a stretch of the Tennessee River, have already closed their waters to commercial paddlefish fishermen. Some waters have been closed in other states. Montana is about to let a contract to a caviar company to buy paddlefish roe directly from the state, rather than allow commercial fishermen to fish the upper Missouri River and sell the roe on their own.

The Missouri Department of Conservation and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service have spent the last three years in an undercover operation to expose what they say is a widespread poaching operation. Fifteen fishermen have been put in jail, some for more than a year, for illegal trafficking in paddlefish roe.