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\n\t By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES<\/p>\n
LEAD: Nothing that a Chinese host can put on a table has more cachet than a bowl of viscous bird’s nest soup. For centuries, it has been a delicacy throughout the Chinese world, a dish famed for its ability to keep people young and healthy.
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\nNothing that a Chinese host can put on a table has more cachet than a bowl of viscous bird’s nest soup. For centuries, it has been a delicacy throughout the Chinese world, a dish famed for its ability to keep people young and healthy.<\/p>\n
But bird nests are becoming increasingly scarce. While the shortage is not yet a crisis, Chinese connoisseurs are obliged to pay more each time they bargain for nests – up to $1,000 a pound for top-quality nests.<\/p>\n
”The price will definitely continue to increase,” Stephen Tam, owner of the Cheong Loong Swallow’s Nest store, said as he sorted the dozens of varieties of nests in his small shop here. ”Most places the birds live have been developed into farmland or towns, and that reduces the number of birds that are left.”<\/p>\n
In addition to the encroachment of humans on the birds’ habitat, pollution is eroding some of the cliffs where they live and build their nests. Meanwhile, rising prices are leading the ”harvesters” of nests to become more aggressive, sometimes snatching nests as soon as they are built, or grabbing nests that have eggs in them.<\/p>\n
The nests used to make the soup belong to a kind of swallow, which builds on rocky cliffs or inside caves in several countries in Southeast Asia. Most of the nests today come from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam or China.<\/p>\n
The nests are not, as most Americans assume, a thatch of twigs and grass such as a robin might manufacture. Rather, they are made of the birds’ saliva, which hardens into cementlike threads. When collected, the nests contain liberal amounts of feathers and even droppings, but are carefully washed and cleaned until they are white strips that look more like sponges than nests.<\/p>\n
While swallow saliva soup may not send tingles across a Western palate, the Chinese rave over it. It is usually cooked with crab meat, shrimp or ham to make a gelatinous soup that is renowned principally for its healthfulness .<\/p>\n
”The taste of the nests is nothing great,” said Fok Kam Tong, head chef at the Man Wah Restaurant in Hong Kong’s Mandarin Hotel, where a bowl of bird’s nest soup ranges in price from $14 to $38. That is why crab and other embellishments are added, he said.<\/p>\n
But bird’s nest soup has virtues other than mere taste. ”It’s very good for you, very nourishing,” Mr. Fok added. ”It’s good for women, for their skin, so they don’t look old. But it’s not just for women; it’s good for everybody.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Fok disputes the pessimists who say that bird’s nest soup could eventually disappear. While scarcity of the proper nests is a concern, he and many Chinese food experts say, the resulting price increase would make it even more prized as a delicacy.<\/p>\n
”If it becomes more expensive, it will be even more popular in Hong Kong,” said Sunny Lan Kun Ying, a salesman at Yuen Wo Bird’s Nest store near Hong Kong’s business district.<\/p>\n
Not according to the owners of the small Hong Kong shops that sell bird nests, who say most people are being priced out of the market. The cost of bird’s nests has more than doubled in the last few years, they say, making it more difficult to afford a nest for a daughter with a skin blemish or a son who is about to take an important examination.<\/p>\n
Some kinds of nests are becoming particularly rare, such as the red ones called ”blood nests.” These have a reddish tinge that chefs say derives from blood in the birds’ saliva. It is even better for one’s health than regular bird nests, they say.<\/p>\n
So, while regular bird nests sell for about $500 for a catty – a Chinese unit of weight amounting to just over a pound – the best-quality blood nests sell for nearly $1,300 a catty at the most exclusive shops.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the swallows are seeking more and more remote locations to build their nests in places where humans will not intrude. They must avoid not only youths who scamper along the cliffs or climb bamboo scaffolding to cave ceilings, but also monkeys that have been trained to climb the rock walls and retrieve nests.<\/p>\n
”The swallows are very careful,” said Mr. Fok, the chef. ”They will never build a nest where it is easy to get to.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
query.nytimes.com By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LEAD: Nothing that a Chinese host can put on a table has more cachet than a bowl of viscous bird’s nest soup. For centuries, it has been a delicacy throughout the Chinese world, a dish famed for its ability to keep people young and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[413],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n