Sterlet

We understood the despair of Parisian gourmets and cooks, and we confirmed the verdict, provisionally announced at breakfast, that the sterlet is the king of all fish. ❋ Isabel Florence Hapgood (1889)

They swear by him, they offer him to you as they would a dish of choice sterlet. ❋ Unknown (2003)

With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of which Ilya Rostov blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. ❋ Unknown (2003)

The bones are of a very glutinous nature, and can be easily masticated, while the taste of a sterlet is something between that of a barbel and a perch, the muddy flavour of the former predominating. ❋ Various (N/A)

Of fresh-water fish, the sturgeon (_Acipenser sturio_ and _A. huso_), sterlet, salmon (_Salmo hucho_), and carp are found in the Danube; the mountain streams abound in trout. ❋ Various (N/A)

Then, after a Russian soup, which always contains as much solid nutriment as meat-biscuit or Arctic pemmican, came the glory of the repast, a mighty _sterlet_, which was swimming in Volga water when we took our seats at the table. ❋ Various (N/A)

The annual produce of these Astrakhan fisheries -- sturgeon, sterlet, salmon, pike, shad, etc. -- amounts to 10,000,000 puds of fish (the pud thirty-six English pound weight) of the value of ❋ Various (N/A)

This day investigation dropped; reconsidered verdict states poisoning to have been by sterlet caviar. ❋ Margaret Horton Potter (N/A)

Now we came to some fishing-huts, which were constructed on the frozen river, the traffic in the finny tribe which takes place in this part of Russia being very great, the Volga producing the sterlet ❋ Various (N/A)

Our sterlet was nearly two feet long, and may have cost twenty or thirty dollars. ❋ Various (N/A)

The Volga is not only an important highway for goods and passengers, but also an inexhaustible fish preserve; indeed the sturgeon and sterlet fisheries constitute its greatest wealth. ❋ Sven Anders Hedin (1908)

Their sterlet is even better than the Hermitage at Moscow. ❋ William Le Queux (1895)

It was a strange but enjoyable evening, and the _menu_ of delicious _sterlet_ brought from the Lena, roast venison, and ice-cream, accompanied by a very fair champagne, was hardly one which you would expect to find in these frozen wastes. ❋ Harry De Windt (1894)

We bought a quantity of sterlet, lest the fishermen at the camp where we had planned to dine should have been unlucky, placed them in a net such as is used in towns for carrying fish from market, and trailed them in the water behind our boat. ❋ Isabel Florence Hapgood (1889)

Anything more delicious it would be difficult to imagine; and we began to revise our opinion of the sterlet. ❋ Isabel Florence Hapgood (1889)

Fortunately, the catch of sterlet at this stand had been good. ❋ Isabel Florence Hapgood (1889)

It was lucky that we had purchased fish at our breakfast-place, as no sterlet had been caught at this camp. ❋ Isabel Florence Hapgood (1889)

There was nothing very valuable in it, though there was variety enough, and we were deceived, for a moment, by several false sterlet. ❋ Isabel Florence Hapgood (1889)

On the voyage upstream, when they are well supplied with sterlet and other fish, all alive, from Astrakhan, the dinners are treats for which one may sigh in vain in the capitals of St. Petersburg and Moscow, with their mongrel German-French-Russian cookery. ❋ Isabel Florence Hapgood (1889)

I remember one particularly delicious concoction was composed of fresh sterlet and sour cabbage, with white grapes on top, baked to a brown crispness. ❋ Isabel Florence Hapgood (1889)