Bird nest soup. Swallow's nests or $3,000 for a Chinese delicacy

Health

Many of us love to eat a bowl of delicious steaming soup for lunch that will satisfy our hunger. Soups are hearty and healthy meals, which are prepared from what you have in the refrigerator. Maybe you have a bat lying around in your refrigerator or a tiger penis?

There are soups in the world that are completely different from those that you are used to cooking. Most of them came to us from such an unusual for Europeans Asian cuisine.

Find out about the most unusual first courses from around the world, some of which may shock you.

1) Menudo (Mexico)

While the ingredients in this soup may not come as a surprise to some of you, not all people would be willing to try beef stomach. Menudo - traditional mexican soup, which is quite popular in Mexico and is often prepared on special occasions. The dish is also widely known as a hangover cure.

Menudo is made from the stomachs of a cow with the addition of onion, cilantro, oregano, chili and corn. It takes 7 to 10 hours to cook it, as the stomach is cooked for a very long time so that it becomes soft and tender. Some may wonder, can the stomach really taste good? But if you add all the other ingredients to it and let it simmer on low heat for a couple of hours, the result will be simply incredible.

The stomach becomes so tender that it melts in the mouth, add more to that corn tortillas, which you can dip into the soup, and you will get lovely lunch. Little is known about the origin of this soup, but one can guess that in Mexico, when a bull was slaughtered, they wanted to use all parts of the carcass for cooking, including the stomachs. You can find this dish in many Mexican restaurants.

2) Kiburu (Tanzania)

This is probably the easiest soup on the list, and is made by the Chagga tribe, who live at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa. This tribe survives on agriculture and pays most attention to the cultivation of bananas and coffee.

The tribe leads a simple life, that's why they cook simple meals: kiburu soup is made from sweet bananas, legumes and… dirt. All ingredients are mixed with water to make a soup, and tree branches can also be added here. The mud makes the soup salty and gives it an "earthy" taste.

3) Supu (Tanzania)

This soup is somewhat reminiscent of the Mexican menudo soup, as different animal parts are used to make it. Supu, as the name implies, translates as "soup".

The Tanzanian version of this dish is prepared for breakfast, it is the most unusual and is made from the lungs, heart, liver, head of a goat and stomach of a cow, sometimes from the entrails and tongue. Sometimes the soup is made on the basis of hooves, then it is called "supu ya makongoro". This dish is traditionally loved for breakfast in Tanzania and is also a hangover cure.

4) Cock testicle soup

This soup is very similar to ours. chicken soup with noodles, except that it is not prepared from chicken meat, but from rooster testicles. Eggs and vegetables are boiled until tender. The testicles have a creamy texture inside, they are very soft, somewhat reminiscent of tofu, but with a hard skin, like sausages.

Some compare them to boiled eggs that taste custard. The testicles, as it turned out, have good side effects, for example, they favorably affect the skin of women and increase potency in men.

5) Bird's Nest Soup (China)

One of the most expensive soups on this list is bird nests, which is prepared from salangana nests. This Chinese soup real delicacy, it can be tasted in some restaurants for 30-100 dollars per serving. A kilogram of bird nests costs about 2 thousand dollars.

This soup is actually made from the sticky bird saliva that birds make up most of their nests from. The nest dissolves in water, the soup is somewhat reminiscent of jelly. These nests have been cooked in China since ancient times, mainly in the form of soups.

Salangans build their nests in caves, and this is done by male birds. It takes about 35 days to build one nest. Birds weave threads from their saliva into the shape of a bowl. They say that the dish renders positive influence on human health, in particular, helps to treat asthma, increases libido, strengthens the immune system.

6) Deer placenta soup (China)

In Shanghai, China, you can try deer placenta soup, which can bring health benefits: increase sexual strength, cure kidneys, improve skin condition and increase vitality. Mushrooms, flowers, chicken are added to this soup, but main ingredient- deer placenta, which is quite elastic and chews for a long time.

The placenta is a bag-like organ female body, which attaches the embryo to the mother's uterus during pregnancy in most mammals. Through the placenta passes blood from the mother's body to the embryo, which delivers oxygen and nutrients, and also helps to deduce by-products. After the baby is born, the placenta leaves the mother's body.

7) Cod milk soup (Japan)

This soup is made from codfish milk and is very popular in Japan, where it is called shirako soup. Milk is a bag of fish sperm that is boiled in water until a stew with a creamy consistency, almost like custard, is obtained.

"Shirako" translated means "white kids". The dish is prepared mainly in winter, it is believed that it can increase potency if eaten in a certain amount. Some oriental restaurants prepare this dish as something special to surprise customers.

8) Bat Soup (Palau Islands)

This soup might not be so terrible if its main ingredient (bats) were at least de-furred. On the islands of Palau in the Pacific Ocean, apparently, there is a shortage of edible animals, so the locals do not disdain bats. The islands are inhabited by several species of bats, those that eat insects and those that eat fruits.

The latter are boiled in coconut milk with ginger and other seasonings for several hours. In some restaurants, you can even choose a male or female before the poor mouse is thrown alive into boiling water. Many gourmets who decided to try this masterpiece culinary arts, claim that he is magnificent, however, if you do not pay attention to the hairy head sticking out of the plate.

9) Tiger Penis Soup (China)

There are many soups made from animal genitals, but this soup is the rarest and most expensive of all. No wonder, because for its preparation you need to kill at least one tiger, which in China is punishable by death.

Tiger penis soup has been special dish Asian cuisine (probably why there are so few tigers today), since the penis of a tiger is believed by Asians to have the mystical properties of Viagra!

The dried penis of a poor cat is soaked in water for a week, and then simmered for a whole day with spices and medicines, sometimes along with tiger bones. One serving of this soup can cost $400. Despite the fact that tigers are trying to be protected in every possible way, parts of their body still seep into the markets, but most of the products that are sold under the guise of tiger penises are actually deer or bull tendons.

10) Blood Soup (Vietnam)

And finally, the strangest soup on our list, which the tongue does not dare to call soup. This a traditional dish vietnamese cuisine, which is made from raw blood (usually goose blood), bird giblets, peanuts, and herbs.

This soup is frozen and the blood thickens and is eaten chilled before the blood loses its jelly-like consistency. Supposedly, the soup gives strength not only to the one who eats it, but also to the one who prepares it. The soup fell out of favor after the bird flu swept through Asia. And yet, many Asians continue to eat it without fear of infection.

+ Bonus: Soup #5

Soup number 5 also makes the list of the strangest soups on the planet. It is prepared in some parts of Southeast Asia and consists of onions, carrots, meat broth, penis and testicles of a bull. This soup has gained popularity also due to its aphrodisiac properties.

Over the past 400 years, an expensive dish has been very popular in Chinese cuisine - bird nest soup or "soup from swallow nests".
Salangan swallows make nests that are considered edible and consist mainly of saliva.
The cost of the nest ranges from $2,500 to $10,000 per kilogram, so a bowl of this soup costs between $30 and $100.
The high cost is due to the high risk of finding these nests and complex process cleaning.

The favorite nesting place of salangan swallows is rocks in Malaysia. To get them out of there, climbers have to risk their lives. Nests are collected three times a year, rope ladders are the only affordable way get to the nesting site.
However, getting to the nest is not the most important thing, you still need to guess the time, take the nest exactly when the chicks have flown away and the swallow has not had time to lay new eggs.
Nests are made from a mixture of bird feathers and saliva and must be carefully cleaned using tiny tools to pull out each feather, and special cleaners and bleaches are used.

Dried nests are ready for sale. The box on the right is $800.

What is left after the cleaning is a small, hardened shell made almost entirely of the bird's saliva. The most valuable of these are the "red nests" which can cost up to $10,000 per kilo. However, the most common nests are white and black, priced between $5,000 and $6,000 per kilo.

According to those who have tried it, the "swallow's nest" soup is soft and jelly-like. The saliva of birds is about 70 percent protein, which when dissolved in water creates a gelatinous mixture with a sweet taste.

In addition to making soup, nests can be used as an ingredient with champignons, with boiled rice or as an accompaniment to egg tarts or desserts from egg cream, jelly is also popular.
The import and export of "swallow's nests" is banned in some countries due to bird flu.

One of the main "chips" of Chinese cuisine is swallow's nest soup. But the one who tries to treat himself to lumps of clay from which our swallows mold their nests will be cruelly mistaken.

In China, the nests are completely different

Let's start with the fact that they are not made by swallows at all, but by stone swifts - salangans. They nest on small islands off the coast of South China, Vietnam and Thailand, where there is no vegetation, not even clay - only rocks. Therefore, swifts make nests from their own saliva, mixing it with their food - algae and fish fry. Found on a rock appropriate place, the swift traces the contour of the future nest on it with saliva and in a few days sculpts a basket with a diameter of 6-8 centimeters. In the sun, it quickly dries up, turning into a food product that does not deteriorate over the years, consisting of pure protein. To taste, it slightly resembles black caviar, and even surpasses it in price.

Collectors come to the islands where swifts nest every spring. Their work is deadly - nests are molded on the very tops of the rocks, where you have to climb with a simple rope. Having lost one nest by the grace of people, the restless birds immediately build a second, and then a third - then their patience is not enough. The first nest, white, is considered the most delicious, pink and brown ones are valued less. The collectors came up with a legend that the birds do not have enough saliva to build a second nest and they add their own blood to it - hence the pink color.

In Thailand, swifts settle not only on rocks, but also in abandoned houses. Many homeowners even move to another location in the spring so as not to disturb the birds. Moreover, they lure them with the voices of relatives recorded on a tape recorder - an expensive dish is worth it. In the East, swallow nests are still considered not only an exotic food, but also a medicine, and are often sold in pharmacies. And for good reason - in addition to protein, they contain iodine, phosphorus and many vitamins. Nests are especially valued by city dwellers, who believe that they cleanse the lungs from the effects of inhaling smog.

Swift salangan

Interesting Facts. Salangans are small gray-brown birds of the swift suborder that live in South and Southeast Asia. There are 17 species of them, but only three build nests suitable for food. The nests of the gray salangana are most valued - it makes them only from saliva, while other species "hack" by adding grass, pieces of bark and even pebbles to the "solution". True, only fresh nests are edible: the old ones darken, larvae and mold start up in them. From these nests, after processing, valuable gelatin is extracted, which in China is called "dragon's claw". Without the ability to distinguish an old nest from a fresh one, the hard and dangerous work of the picker may be in vain. During the season, an experienced climber can collect up to 40 thousand nests with a total weight of up to half a gann. At the same time, pickers never work in one place for a long time, otherwise the swift population will die out and they will lose good earnings by local standards. Salangana is interesting not only for gourmets, but also for zoologists: it is the only swift that hunts at night, using an ultrasonic "radar" like a bat. Birds usually settle in large colonies, so the catch of nest pickers is always successful.

How is a swallow's nest prepared?

During the preparation process, dry nests are divided into portions of approximately 10 grams. Then they are soaked for 4-5 hours in hot water, and in the end, they are treated with barium oxide for disinfection, because the owner of the nest could well be sick. The chemical, in turn, is removed by rinsing under running water. After that, the nest is boiled and served in two versions. The first is the soup itself, in which completely boiled fibers of the nest float. Sometimes it is served with chicken pies or unleavened donuts "mantou". In the second version, the boiled nest is laid out in a separate cup, and the soup is mixed with chicken broth seasoned with salt, ginger and rice vodka. Both options are combined when small meatballs from the nest and chicken meat are put in the soup: the Chinese believe that homemade flightless chicken is the perfect complement. useful qualities free and fast-winged swift. Well, this is quite logical for a country where cooking is inseparable from the most sophisticated philosophy.

The main raw material for making soup- dried nests, which, when steamed, increase tenfold. A kilogram of this delicacy costs about $2000. Nests are very rare in stores, as Chinese and Thai restaurants around the world are buying them up in the bud. They are also served in Moscow, but connoisseurs advise going east for a real delicacy.

Swallow's nest soup heritage of shanghai cuisine, one of six culinary traditions, which in the West, by misunderstanding, are united under the name of Chinese cuisine. Its main features are abundance fish dishes, fried trepang and octopus. But in general, in Shanghai, as in all of China, they eat, as they say, everything that runs, crawls, swims and flies, except for a man and a dragon. In addition to soup, salads, meatballs, and stuffing for pies are made from salangana nests. But the confectionery "swallow's nests", popular in Europe, have nothing to do with the Far East. Their traditions in Thailand - at local resorts, the soup is poured into a green coconut or papaya fruit and served with nuts and croutons with sweet syrup. There are no such frills in Vietnam: here the nests are boiled and eaten with chicken broth.

Interesting fact. It is said that the great philosopher Confucius himself (551-479 BC) invented swallow's nest soup. He also formulated the main principles of Chinese cuisine when he taught: "Do not eat what is overcooked, undercooked, poorly cut and too spicy." There was another principle - strict class. For centuries, the people did not even know the names of the dishes that were served on the table of the nobility, and some mandarin of the third rank did not dare to try the dishes intended for the emperor's table. Protein-rich swallow nests have been considered since the time of Confucius the best remedy to strengthen potency and prolong life, and only members of the imperial family could eat them. As a result, democracy killed swifts: after the fall of the monarchy in 1911, China was divided between warring clans, and the leaders of each demanded fragrant soup for lunch. Today there are almost no salangans left in the country, and nests for local restaurants imported from Vietnam. Only now they are eaten not by emperors, but by wealthy Chinese businessmen and foreign tourists.

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As everyone knows, China is terribly overpopulated. And this situation has persisted for centuries. As a result, China was forever starving. And with hunger you just can’t eat. So they learned in the Celestial Empire not to neglect what the heavens send. In Chinese cuisine, you can find a snake and cat roast called the “Dragon-Tiger Battle”, shark fins, earthworms, salt-baked chickens, ants, mice and rats, snails, dog meat goulash, duck eggs, aged for a hundred days in a lime coating.

In a word, National cuisine concentrated the skills of cooking everything that ran past (or crawled). Moreover, in China they eat not only animals, but also their dwellings - for example, swallow nests. Do not try to experiment with the cooking of our swallow nests - Chinese swallow nests mean something completely different.

But what exactly?

Let's start with the fact that these are not nests of swallows, but of salangan swifts that live on the shores of the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea. The famous nests of the baby salangana are not molded from clay, but from algae, fastening them with their own saliva. As inlays, salangans generously add eggs and fry of fish there. So it turns out that swallow nests consist of completely edible products, except for accidentally stuck feathers.

There was a strong opinion that all dishes oriental cuisine terribly healing, downright panacea for all misfortunes. I don't know about all other dishes, but the swallows' nests seem to justify the expectations attributed to the rumor. It is natural that swallow nests, which are actually seafood, contain a large number of iodine. In addition, they contain phosphorus, calcium, iron and many other useful trace elements. But this is not the main thing. It is important that the combination of components that make up the swallow's nests has a surprisingly powerful cumulative effect on the human body, improves immunity, enhances defenses, and has a rejuvenating effect. Especially swallow nests are useful for children, the elderly, pregnant women, weak and sick people.

Only the list of diseases that we could get rid of by regularly consuming swallow's nests takes up several pages. Suffice it to say that they heal asthma, chronic cough, throat diseases, exhibit antitumor activity, and contribute to the treatment of certain oncological diseases. Swallow's nests improve the quality of spermatozoa, solve the problems of male infertility, in addition, they are a strong aphrodisiac and increase potency. And women like that they rejuvenate the skin and smooth out wrinkles. Therefore, swallow nests are not only eaten, but also medicines and cosmetics are made from them.

What profit can be brought by fishing for swallow nests

Delicious swallow nests - one of the most expensive food products, their price reaches 2000 dollars per kilogram, which is comparable to the most expensive varieties beluga caviar. Not so long ago, fishing for swallow nests was a very laborious and dangerous business - after all, salangans nest on sheer cliffs at the height of a 10–15-story building and desperately defend their home. However, now, in our highly technical age, they have been bred like chickens, quails or ostriches. For salangans, high multi-storey buildings are built, in which, instead of windows, narrow slots are arranged in the walls, like a notch in a beehive. Inside, numerous concrete beams are arranged under low ceilings. Salangans are happy to make nests in secluded corners between the beams and the ceiling. From there, they are periodically cut off by the workers of the salangan farm, trying to remove only those nests in which eggs have not yet been laid. Sometimes poor salangans have to build nests three times a year. Now all over the world several tons of swallow nests are mined every year. Considering that a dried salangan nest weighs about 10 g, one can imagine how much it is and what scale this business has reached. The fishery for swallow nests is constantly developing, and the hour is not far off when they will become available to any inhabitant of the planet.

How to make the famous swallow's nest soup

Swallow's nests are eaten not only in China. Swallow's nest soup is popular in India, Indonesia, and the countries of Indochina. You can also taste it here, but only in expensive restaurants in large cities. You can cook it yourself, if you manage to get (what the hell is not joking!) This very swallow's nest. How? First, the swallow's nest is poured with boiling water and left to swell for five hours, periodically replacing the cooling water with boiling water. For additional softening, swallow nests are doused with a solution baking soda. Adhering feathers, fluff and dirt are removed from the swollen nest with tweezers. Then rinse thoroughly with cold water.

Soaked swallow's nest is poured with chicken broth so that it covers the nest, and boiled on strong fire 15 minutes. Then this chicken broth is drained and the nest is poured with a new portion of strong chicken broth. Add finely chopped raw white chicken meat, boiled ham and to taste monosodium glutamate, salt, herbs. Bring to a boil and cook over low heat for half an hour.

Bon appetit and good health!

Swifts live in caves, in the mountains or in urban areas in rooms specially equipped for caves. Until the 1990s many swifts lived in Indonesia, but constant fires led to their mass migration to a safer neighboring country - Malaysia.

The mating season for swifts begins from February to May. At this time, they stand out the most large quantity saliva, which they use to build nests. This process takes about 30-45 days. Another 3-7 days pass in anticipation of the chicks. And if a young pair of swifts feel comfortable and safe in their home, then 2 eggs will appear in their nest, which they take care of in turn. The eggs take 3-4 weeks to incubate, after which the chicks hatch and spend another 45-60 days in their nests before they can fly. Swifts have an extraordinary memory, so it is not difficult for them to find their nest among thousands of others after a long day 50 km from home. They leave their homes early in the morning at 5:30-6:30 am and arrive back at 7:15-7:30 pm. Some swifts return during the day to feed their chicks. Swifts usually live in pairs and they do not change their “life partner” until the end of their lives. They usually build their nests at night.

The consumption of bird nests has been dated to 618-907. AD during the reign of the Tang Dynasty. To date, the main consumers of bird nests are China, Taiwan, Singapore and North America. Indonesia is the world's top supplier with a supply of 250-300 tons of nests per year, while Malaysia supplies only 25 tons, but Malaysian nests are considered to be the best in terms of quality and useful composition.

Nest soup (Chinese 燕窝, pinyin yàn wō, pall. yang wō) is considered a delicacy in China, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The soup has the appearance of mucus and resembles jelly in consistency. Prepared in a water bath.

And there are farms salangans, or edible nests, involve the use of non-residential spaces, usually urban, to create ideal conditions for birds to fly there, make nests and lay eggs. And the resulting nests from hardened bird saliva are either simply eaten as a delicacy (with or without shearers), or used to cook worldwide famous soup from bird nests.

In Georgetown, the capital of the Malaysian state of Penang, there is a farm with millions of salangans.

The salangan farm in Georgetown poses a significant risk to the city's health and has even led UNESCO to reconsider the city's World Heritage status.

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This is not fiction or a joke: the Chinese cook soup from the nests of swallows. Very expensive and, they say, healthy and tasty.

Swallow's nest soup is a traditional Chinese food, and is now enjoyed by very wealthy Chinese gourmets.

It should be noted right away that swallows have absolutely nothing to do with it - edible nests belong to the stone swift. It is the swifts that nest in caves, where they climb the walls surprisingly deftly, clinging with their tenacious claws, similar to fan-shaped rakes.

Swallow's nest soup - food for the elite, imperial, royal. There are many beautiful legends about this extraordinary dish. One of them says that many, many centuries ago, the envoy of the Chinese emperor was treated on the Indochinese peninsula with food from “swallow nests”, which seemed to him so unusual and exquisite that, having taken several nests with him to his homeland, he personally prepared soup from them for his lord. Emperor scooped hot broth with a spoon, blew on it, carefully tasted it, and, closing his eyes with pleasure, asked for more.

Be that as it may, but this delicacy began to be used in China one and a half thousand years ago, according to the research of a well-known connoisseur of the history of "swallow's nests" Chinese professor Yun Chen Kong.

However, in order to prepare original soup First of all, you need to get a nest.

It should be noted that the swallows' own nests in the coastal caves of China were quickly depleted and devastated, which is also confirmed by archaeological excavations.

Therefore, the delicacy began to be imported as early as 700 BC. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644), the eunuch Chen Ho repeatedly led the expeditions of the imperial fleet to Southeast Asia. Among other assignments, he was charged with the duty to deliver local delicacies to the court, including “swallow's nests”.

Now the precious nests in the dark caves of Thailand are mined by fearless and risky people who have been engaged in this life-threatening trade from generation to generation.

We can say that the miners of swallow nests are real rock climbers.

Before the start of the season, nest hunters bring to the islands not only food supplies, but also ropes and hooks. We can say that the miners of swallow nests are real rock climbers. The fact is that some of the caves resemble jugs, which can only be climbed through the neck. Here, a platform is built on the edges of such a neck, and ropes are fixed on it, along which hunters have to go down for tens of meters, wriggling, swinging, in order to get closer to the walls of the cave. The arches of the cave went into darkness, and giant bamboo poles stretched there, tied together and entwined with vines, resembling tall scaffolding.

In order not to provoke the wrath of the gods, the hunters never open the nests with their hands. Perhaps the swallows' nests themselves are the work of deities who can punish people for destroying the nests, nest miners say.

Mined nests are different. For the first time, swifts build nests from pure saliva, a sticky substance produced by two glands under the tongue. Such nests white color, and they are very much appreciated by resellers. The second time, after cutting, the nests turn out to be dark, since branches go to the “construction”, seaweed and even feathers. Their cost is much lower. They collect more nests for the third time, allowing the chicks to grow up. Such nests are painted red, which is often mistaken for the blood of birds, although this is most likely an impurity of iron oxides.

"Swallow" nests are highly valued, chefs buy them expensive restaurants. A kilogram of nests can pay a thousand or more dollars. The price of a nest fluctuates depending on the "harvest": in a drought, there are fewer swifts, therefore, the price of nests increases. It should be said that only fresh nests are valued.

The nests, gourmets say, contain a large amount of proteins and substances that enhance immune system. The broth from the "swallow's nest" is useful for the sick and athletes, restores strength no worse than ginseng or rhinoceros horn, and, they say, even helps with AIDS.

According to gourmets, this exotic delicacy tastes like beluga caviar.

Mined " White gold"are taken to Hong Kong, China, the USA - wherever the Chinese live ...