For the Kitchen Bookshelf : ...

Caviar by Susan R. Friedland (Charles Scribner’s Sons: $15.95, 152 pp., illustrated).

Not long ago there weren’t all that many people out there who could afford to talk about, much less purchase, caviar. Now we have a book that tells you all about caviar, the most expensive food in the world: what it is, how to buy it, store it, use it and relish it in more than 100 recipes, from hors d’oeuvres, soups and appetizers to entrees, salads and sandwiches.

Susan Friedland has thought up all kinds of ways to use caviar--cucumber caviar sauce, potato pancakes, salmon caviar with fennel, caviar-stuffed avocado, potato-skin shells stuffed with caviar.

What we didn’t necessarily believe was that caviar, which costs $300 to $400 for 14 ounces, can be affordable, as claimed by the author, until she mentioned whitefish, lumpfish and salmon caviars. That’s a point. They’re only $1 to $2 per ounce.