Caviar Dreams? Indeed, Georgetown once known as ‘Caviar Capital of America’

Caviar Dreams? Indeed, Georgetown once known as ‘Caviar Capital of America’

While it’s common knowledge that before the Civil War, Georgetown, South Carolina’s cash crop was rice, but a lesser-known local history is that even before colonial times, the region’s surrounding waterways, especially Winyah Bay, the Waccamaw River and the Pee Dee River system, were teeming with Atlantic sturgeon that produced high-end caviar. 

While the earliest records, such as old plantation journals, describe the Russian-style “Malossol” process of lightly salting roe from local fish such as mullet, drum or shad, it wasn’t until 1881 when the first documentation regarding the commercialization of sturgeon caviar appeared in the Georgetown Enquirer.

History is rich along South Carolina’s Hammock Coast®, and the story of the caviar trade is part of the all-too-true tales that make the region so endlessly fascinating.

The Rich History of Caviar in Georgetown

In 1890, further reference to the Georgetown sturgeon caviar trade appeared in a (Charleston) News and Courier article in which a reporter interviewed a fish dealer referred to as Mr. Sack. He was quoted as saying, “The most valuable part of the fish is its roe, which is taken out and salted, and sold as Russian caviar. After being salted, they are packed in kegs, which hold about 100 pounds each, and are shipped to Northern markets, where they find ready sale.”

Over the next century, the Georgetown caviar trade continued to grow exponentially, attracting wealthy consumers such as Bernard Baruch, the Wall Street financier and owner of Hobcaw Barony, located just north of the Georgetown city limits, and local Realtor Freddie “Fishdaddy” Travis, who reported that fishermen in the area sold jars of “Winyah Bay caviar” to chefs in Charleston. Legend also suggests that dignitaries such as Queen Elizabeth II and President John F. Kennedy ordered caviar from Georgetown suppliers, although no documentation exists to substantiate that claim. 

According to a 1964 article for the weekend magazine of the News and Courier, local fish houses such as the Cathou Fish Market on the Georgetown waterfront, a focal point of the local caviar trade, were involved in the processing of sturgeon and selling of caviar. The feature credited Capt. Rene Cathou for the sales of 51,280 pounds of sturgeon meat in 1963. In recognition of this bounty, Cathou was named “King of Caviar” in the March/April edition of Southern World.

Giant fish. Growing market

More recently, on Oct. 20, 2017, Georgetown writer and historian Elizabeth Huntsinger contributed an article to the Charleston Post & Courier in which she explained, “Sturgeon spend most of their lives in saltwater but swim upriver, sometimes surprisingly far, into fresh water to spawn, alerted by lengthening daylight and a rise in the temperature of coastal rivers. Young sturgeon are hatched and head toward the ocean, staying offshore for years before heading up into freshwater to spawn.”  

In a later conversation, she added, “The sturgeon are so massive, they could easily be mistaken for medieval sea monsters because of their big plates and scales.” 

Indeed, a fully grown female sturgeon, which Pawleys Island fisherman Munchie Johnson described as “the size of a car,” could measure 10-14 feet, weigh more than 800 pounds and produce up to 50 pounds of high-end caviar comprising up to twenty-five percent of her weight.

When Georgetown’s caviar trade was at its peak, the sturgeon were as gigantic as they were plentiful, Johnson noted during an interview for a documentary titled “History of Caviar and Sturgeon Fishing in Georgetown South Carolina,” which can be viewed on YouTube. He said there were so many of the giant fish that at low tide, men could walk across the rivers on the wide backs of the fish. Half-tide, Johnson said, was the best time for catching the giant fish with cotton nets.

Further, as Huntsinger wrote in her article, “Winyah Bay had the most commercial U.S. poundage of caviar on the East Coast, primarily from the Atlantic Sturgeon.” 

Caviar dreams, cookbooks and more

Department of Natural Resources biologist Chris Walling cited a 1976 newspaper article that claimed South Carolina had 55 percent of the Atlantic sturgeon landings in the United States.

When Jim Fitch, executive director of the Rice Museum in Georgetown, secured an accommodations grant for the aforementioned documentary, he first discovered the local caviar in the old Altman’s grocery store on the North Causeway of Pawleys Island, where the Pawleys Island Supplies hardware store is now located.

“They were smoking the sturgeon in the store,” he said. “It was like a hub there.”

Fitch, who also starred in the documentary, shared that one of his favorite ways to enjoy the local caviar was by preparing a dip by mixing hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, shredded artichoke hearts, finely chopped scallions and cream cheese. After letting it sit at room temperature, he would dust with locally produced caviar and serve on toast points.

Fitch also suggested making the ultimate omelet by whisking together eggs and milk, poured into a cast iron skillet and adding a generous addition of caviar and sour cream before folding the omelet over. 

In the film, Lowcountry gourmet, food writer and author of “Hoppin’ John’s Lowcountry Cooking” John Martin Taylor, explained that “the most delicious caviar comes from sturgeon swimming from the open ocean to spawn in fresh water. Anything else is just fish eggs.” He first experienced Georgetown’s caviar at about age 10 during one of his parents’ cocktail parties.

Sadly, Georgetown’s reign as the caviar capital of the country was soon to fall.

Over the years, multiple pressures from overfishing, pollution, dams, river silting and habitat loss began to decimate the sturgeon population, according to Travis, the Georgetown Realtor.

“The region’s sturgeon fishery was formally regulated around the early 20th century. For example, short-nosed sturgeon started being regulated around 1916,” Travis said. “By the mid-1900s, declines were substantial. One account determined that industrial fishing all but disappeared from Georgetown with the ban on sturgeon fishing in 1983. Sources vary slightly on the exact year cited in different local accounts.

“For example, while 1983 is mentioned in museum and local history pages, state sources record closure and enforcement in 1985. I’m citing both because this is a real discrepancy in public sources.” 

The end of the caviar trade

Huntsinger’s article corroborates the account of the caviar industry’s demise in Georgetown.

In the feature, she quoted Cathou as saying, “There were plenty of fish in the ’40s, although the industries were dumping their wastes and polluting the river. But my men fished mainly in the ocean so they didn’t bother anything. Now the mills are more careful and are keeping the waters cleaner, but fish are scarce. We’re getting fished out. There are so many fishermen.”

He went on to explain about the large nets and motorized equipment being used as opposed to hand lines and nets of the past.

Huntsinger’s article continued to explain that “by 1989, Capt. Rene was … plagued with arthritis and could not maintain a full schedule. And sturgeon season, of course, no longer happened.”

“We folded the business,” Cathou was quoted as saying in the Times. “I’m still here … but the fish business, the caviar, the shrimp and the retail market, all that’s in the past now.”

Yet other accounts suggest that the regulation was unnecessary because the plentitude of local sturgeon was actually not on the decline. In her article, Huntsinger quoted Capt. Ronnie Campbell, who took over the Fish House after Cathou died in 2000, as saying, “In the early ’70s, late ’60s, you could get $2,000 for one. No question they were overfished. But they are claiming they still are. Atlantic Marine Fisheries put sturgeon on the endangered list … with no date to back it up. Sturgeon are jumping like popcorn everywhere you look. They are literally jumping on the docks. That is something we never saw before they became endangered. Now they are literally pests.” 

Whether they were over- or under-fished, sturgeon can live up to 60 years. If only some of the old-timers that survived that bygone era could talk, they would tell the story of what Travis described as “a mix of local industry, ecological change and cultural memory.” 

Travis concluded, “While the remaining fish houses and docks are reminders of a time when Georgetown played a significant role in a specialized fishery along the Atlantic coast, they tell the rich historical story of local fisher families, markets like Cathou’s, river ecosystems and a shift from abundance to conservation. Today, the Atlantic sturgeon is a protected species in the United States, symbolizing that the old caviar industry is an essential part of the region’s historical heritage.”

Of the century-old caviar tradition, Fitch said, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

And, he added, “People all over the country and the world knew about Georgetown’s caviar. They loved it and mourned its loss as the end of an era.” 

— By Sarah Rose for South Carolina’s Hammock Coast