Back in the 1920s, the Petrossian brothers, refugees from the Russian Revolution, had two problems in trying to introduce Caspian Sea caviar to skeptical Parisians. One was how to induce potential customers to sample a spoonful; the other was how to clean the oriental carpets after they had spit it out. The Petrossians soon equipped themselves with spittoons, and the Parisians, famously, opened their hearts and wallets to the joy of mildly briny sturgeon eggs.

What is less well known is that before the Soviets cottoned to the export possibilities of their domestic super-roe, the world's great producer of sturgeon caviar was...New Jersey. Turn-of-the-century America's coasts and lakes were apparently so flush with caviar that Lake Michigan's massive annual harvest was often given away like beer nuts, free with a drink in saloons. Unfortunately, the lumbering sturgeon proved all too easy to catch, and their U.S. population quickly hit the skids.

At about the time the American sturgeon catch was starting to tap out, fish eggs from the Caspian Sea were beginning to put on their cosmopolitan French airs. As the '20s got off and roaring, le tout monde coveted these complex, fruity-salty-meaty little pearls, particularly the large, subtly flavored roe of the beluga, a fish peculiar even by sturgeon standards. Occupying its own genus (it's Huso huso), a beluga can live for a century and weigh more than a ton--a boneless, plate-backed, prehistoric survivor that is the world's largest freshwater fish. The all-time monster beluga, according to the pleasurable new book Caviar, by Inga Saffron: a Jaws-size 28-foot, 4,570-pounder caught in 1736.

But in a quirky turn of history, the global success of beluga caviar has helped spawn, as it were, the comeback of U.S. caviar. In Georgia, Missouri, California--all over the aqueous American landscape--luxury caviars are now being tinned with painstaking attention to technique and commanding prices that ensure they will never be bar snacks.

In part, of course, these domestic producers are cashing in on the mystique of beluga caviar (and of less pricey Caspian osetra and sevruga). But the American caviar industry is also being levered up on one end of a seesaw as the beluga sturgeon plummets on the other.

As eco-disasters go, the near-extinction of the beluga sturgeon may not rank with global warming, but some of us have grown fond of the big lugs. And by many accounts, these living dinosaurs are indeed about to hit a brick wall at the end of their 250-million-year run.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the caviar of the northern Caspian, normally associated with words like "melba toast," has been more often seen in sentences with phrases like "desperate poachers" and "organized criminal gangs." Over the past 20 years, according to the watchdog campaign Caviar Emptor's estimate, the beluga population has nose-dived by 90 %. (The sturgeon that produce osetra and sevruga are also getting hammered. But their populations are larger and the fish themselves smaller, so at least in theory they have a faster growth and recovery time.)

Last summer the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service began the process that could lead to listing the beluga as an endangered species. If it comes to pass, it would forbid all imports of beluga sturgeon products. And we Americans consume half of the world's beluga caviar these days.

On the other hand, "it's far from a done deal," says Eve Vega, executive director of Petrossian Paris. "There are some groups out there providing Fish & Wildlife with less than complete estimates of the industry." And even the most optimistic greens understand that endangered-species status wouldn't begin to address the core problem: lax enforcement by local officials at the Caspian fisheries, combined with the overwhelming economic incentive for poor fishermen and smugglers to cheat.

Looked at from another angle, the problems in the Caspian fisheries have also provided plenty of economic incentive on this side of the Atlantic: American consumers are simply being priced out of the import market. Take, for instance, the price of beluga caviar at Petrossian's New York boutique, which has rocketed from $204 per 125 grams in 1989 to $419 today.

As such price hikes have spread across the market--and the ecological concerns have come into sharp focus--American chefs and caviar lovers have begun to reappreciate our native resources. It turns out we have plenty of fertile, prehistoric fish right here in River City. Why we never noticed them before isn't really such a mystery: People who craved fine caviar could generally afford the Caspian stuff, and everyone else was confused. Unlike in European Union countries, where the term legally applies only to sturgeon roe, we here in America have had whitefish, lumpfish, salmon and even, for some reason, boiled eggplant fobbed off on us as "caviar." Many folks who think they hate caviar haven't ever tasted the senses-awakening real stuff, or anyway, not enough of it.

In the awakening department, the best American caviars are a revelation. Even with our potentially top player on injured reserve (the Atlantic sturgeon is currently under a commercial fishing ban), companies like Sterling, Tsar Nicoulai and Seattle Caviar are offering subtle, very caviary-tasting roe from the Pacific Coast white sturgeon, the lake sturgeon of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, and even from the oddly abundant paddlefish, a distant sturgeon cousin.

The question is how open-minded we can be when Caspian caviar has cornered the market on fish-egg mystique. Your taste buds might confuse paddlefish roe from the limestone springs of Kentucky for fine sevruga, but how long will it take before your romantic prejudices allow your brain to accept the information?

To attain true gourmet snobisme, a food must be rare (beluga), painstakingly obtained (foie gras), or initially revolting (smoked eel). (If it is all three, you are eating a truffle.) In the English-speaking world it also helps a lot if the French liked it first. By these traditional standards American caviars have a tough row to hoe. But as they begin to crop up on fine restaurant menus and luxury food websites, they are gaining foodie insider cred all the time. What's more, as you languorously pop the firm eggs of a Michigan caviar against the roof of your mouth and extend a paw toward the vodka bottle, you are striking a blow for ecology. In another of the twists in this fish story, the American companies seeking to supplant Caspian caviar may actually prevent the Caspian sturgeon from disappearing.