For those of us who don't live on the icy shores of the Caspian Sea, caviar has always been a rare delicacy. But it's never been as highly prized (or, indeed, as highly priced) as it is right now. A 1kg tin of Beluga Caspian Caviar (Bond's favourite) now averages about £1,700 and there are no signs of that figure going anywhere but up. Just as the golden Sterlet caviar has disappeared from our menus (the tsars and emperors guzzled it into oblivion), the wild and endangered sturgeon, from the Caspian Sea, which produces 90 per cent of the world's caviar, is under serious threat.

Pollution and poaching have plagued the sturgeon since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Iran, stocks have decreased by 50 per cent in the past 15 years and Dr Pourkazemi, director of the Sturgeon International Research Centre in Iran, predicts that the species could be extinct within another 15 years.