Pity the poor lumpfish. It’s lumbered with an unflattering name, or its equally unattractive moniker: ‘Sucker fish.’ It also looks unappealing. The blighters are endowed with a stubby nose and knobbly, spotty, tubercular skin that gives them their lumpy look. With a carbuncled, ridged back, bulging eyes and a suction disc so it can attach itself to rocks, it hardly cuts the sexiest figure.

But God bless the lumpfish, it does deliver poor man’s caviar in spades. It couldn’t look more different from the king of caviar, the sturgeon, which is the most elegant fish in the ocean. Long, sleek, silver, the sturgeon flows effortlessly through the water like Concorde flying through the sky. It has handsome stitching along its body. The lumpfish, however, has the elegance of a toad in a hole. As for appetite appeal, only the sturdy Scandinavians and Icelanders eat it.

The female lumpfish is productive, though, laying between 50,000 and 220,000 eggs at its biannual spawning. These unfertilised eggs, or roe, are salted in barrels mainly by fisheries in Greenland and Iceland before being dyed either black or red.

How can hugely expensive sturgeon caviar be worth it when there is a cheaper alternative? Lumpfish caviar is smaller and firmer, with more of a pop and a bolder, tangier, saltier flavour; sturgeon caviar is larger, smoother, richer, more buttery, subtler in taste and more delicately textured. Because lumpfish, unlike sturgeon, are boundlessly abundant and fast-maturing, they are, however, far more sustainable and eco-friendly.

Then there’s the cost. At Waitrose you can buy a 50g jar of Elsinore chilled black lumpfish caviar for £3.30; alternatively you can buy 50g of bona fide Beluga caviar from the Queen of Caviar, Laura King, who runs King’s Fine Food London for £246.25.

Frankly, given that most of us nibble caviar on canapés or blinis at some social do or other, when there are plenty of distractions from the food, I’d plump for lumpfish every time. Even sharing a glob of caviar with a loved one on devilled eggs or scrambled eggs, I’d be happy with the pauper version, so long as I had a chilled vodka on hand to assuage the guilt. However, if you’re out to impress but still find the cost of the real McCoy a tad off-putting, here’s the perfect answer: mix a couple of caviar-infused vodka martinis.

First, stick two martini glasses in the freezer for ten minutes. While they’re chilling, pour two parts vodka and one part dry vermouth in a large beaker with a handful of ice cubes. Stir gently for half a minute. Use a fine mesh strainer to pour it into the frosty glasses to get rid of any remaining ice. Gently spoon two teaspoonfuls of lumpfish caviar into the middle, watching it settle at the bottom, just like a lumpfish on the seabed. You can add a footling splash of ice-cold water to open up the flavours. Throw in a twist of lemon, giving a squeeze to release some teardrops of citrus.

Bottoms up – or ‘skál’ as they say in Iceland. But you’ll need to curb your patience. It takes a while, maybe up to 15 minutes, for the lumpfish to work its magic and fully permeate the vodka. By then it’s likely there’s not much liquid left in the glass and the drink becomes more of a squishy food. Spoon out the infused caviar, suck it through your teeth and raise your glasses in praise of the glorious lumpfish… and let those posh old sturgeons rest in peace.