Species sheet · The Edible River
European sturgeon
The last wild sturgeon of western Europe.
- Once roasted in thick steaks, like meat
- Smoked, in thin slices
- Its salted roe as caviar
Protected species
It is eaten in some cultures. It is also a protected species, and we have no wish to encourage that.
- In French
- Esturgeon européen
- Scientific name
- Acipenser sturio
- Status
- Protected species
- In the water
- A great migrant that grows at sea and climbs rivers to spawn. Once found from the Baltic to the Black Sea, it now breeds only in the Gironde, Garonne and Dordogne.
- Season & buying
- A protected, critically endangered species, off limits to fishing in France since 1982: the atlas shows it, it does not encourage eating it. Sturgeon on sale is farmed, usually Siberian.
- Common length
- ~150 cm
- How to identify it
- Long, pointed snout with four barbels
Five rows of bony plates along the body
Asymmetric tail with a long upper lobe
On the plate
Historically, firm, white, fatty flesh close to meat, and roe that made the reputation of Gironde caviar.
Avoid: Historically, steaming it without a sear: the dense flesh stayed bland and rubbery.
Between the wars, Gironde caviar was served in the great Paris houses alongside Russian caviar, before the population collapsed. The last natural spawning on record dates from the 1990s.