One flew over a swallow's nest

I can never forget somethings in life and this is one of them. Many years ago I was asked if I had ever had a Bird's Nest Soup? I looked completely blank …and guess what! I actually was at a demo in Singapore where the chef (hard core Chinese of course) from a very reputed hotel gave us a demo and tasting of that trippy soup. And it actually tasted good.

Edible bird's nests are bird nests that are prepared and eaten by humans, particularly prized in Chinese culture due to their rarity and exquisite flavour. They are among the most expensive animal products consumed by humans, with an average nest selling for $2,500 per kilogram for end-consumers in Asia.The nests have been used in Chinese cooking for over 400 years, most often as bird's nest soup.

The Chinese name for edible bird's nest, yàn w? translates literally as "swallow's (or swift's) nest", and often serves as r bird's nest soup. However, yàn w? strictly speaking is the uncooked nest.

When dissolved in water, the birds' nests have a gelatinous texture used for soup or sweet which is an aromatic star anise flavoured stock sugar syrup with dehydrated lotus seeds, red dates and Chinese wolf berries
In addition to its use in soup, edible birds nest can be used as an ingredient in many other dishes, it can be cooked with rice to produce bird's nest congee or bird's nest boiled rice, or it can be added to egg tarts and other desserts. A bird's nest jelly can be made by placing the bird's nest in a ceramic container with minimal water and sugar (or salt) and double steamed. Ready to eat bird's nest jelly is available in jars as well.

The white nests and the red nests are supposedly rich in nutrients, and an overall benefit to the immune system.

Most nests are built during the breeding season by the male swiftlet over a period of 35 days. They take the shape of a shallow cup stuck to the cave wall. The nests are composed of interwoven strands of salivary laminae cement. Both nests have high levels of calcium, iron, potassium, and magnesium

Hong Kong and the United States are the largest importers of these nests. In Hong Kong, a bowl of bird's nest soup would cost US$30 to US$100. A kilogram of white nest can cost up to US$2,000, and a kilogram of red nests can cost up to US$10,000. Natural red cave nests are often only found in limestone caves in a bird nest concession island in Thailand, the chef told us.

The nests were formerly harvested from caves, principally the enormous limestone caves at Gomantong and Niah in Borneo. This has become an extraordinary industry, mainly based on a series of towns in the Indonesian Province of North Sumatra, which have been completely transformed by the activity. From there the nests are mostly exported to the markets in Hong Kong, which has become the centre of the world trade, though most of the final consumers are from mainland China.

Because it is an animal product, it is subject to strict import restrictions in some countries, particularly with concern to avian flu.

The nests are made by swallows of the genus Collocali. What makes them remarkable is that the birds line them with saliva and pre-digested seaweed, which hardens to a translucent layer. There are many grades; the whiter, and the fewer feathers, the better. They look a bit like nest, but there is no smell and little taste, their function being to provide texture to the soup. Simmered for three hours, it tastes a bit like woven gelatin, or a well boiled loofah.

Pieces of the nest are stored in a cool, dry place, but then are soaked in cold water overnight before they are stewed with chicken stock and a little cornstarch. The result is a thick and hearty soup that looks, tastes and feels like egg drop soup but without the soup.The thickness of the soup might suggest that the base is actually saliva, but when you realise that's just the cornstarch in the stock, it mentally goes down easier. In fact, it goes down really easy because, to my surprise, it actually tasted quite good, except when you realise that you have just eaten someone house.

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 South East Asia. Most of the nests today come from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam or China.

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.

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.

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. I think it was a great chance to taste this not sure if I would actually pay for it to try it again some more next week. Until then bon appetit and eat well.