Old timers laze away the hot days playing with grandkids and tending to tasks like drying fish and preserving salted duck egg yolks in the sun.

WSJ: Stays: A Boutique Hotel That Once Held Pirates

Still more of them gathered round in an audience, stuck to the walls, crowding the shelves, perched on the lintel, all of them muttering opinions as the preparations went on they would have baked, not seared, that fish, and salted the cabbage but not the asparagus, and chosen caramel over fudge for the cake.

NEWYORKER: A Tiny Feast

It takes up to 10 years to raise a female sturgeon, but harvesting at exactly the right moment should take no more than 10 minutes, from slicing open the fish to packing the salted eggs in special containers, which allow the caviar to breathe, thus continuing maturation and allowing taste and character to develop.

WSJ: Black Gold: French Caviar Is �� la Mode

By the 1800s Russian aristocrats took to carting live sturgeon with them when they traveled, so the fish could be sliced open and their roe salted and served fresh.

FORBES: Caviar Emptor