About Bird’s Saliva Nest Soup

About Bird’s Saliva Nest Soup

Bird’s Saliva Nest soup is a soup made from the nest of a kind of cave'dwelling swift. It is regarded as a delicacy, health booster, life prolonger and aphrodisiac in Asia, particularly in China and Hong Kong, and is said rejuvenate skin, clear up complexions, clean out the digestive track, and cure lung cancer. 

Bird’s Saliva Nest Soup

The translucent, gelatinous material used to make the Bird’s Saliva Nest gives the soup richness and texture and was compared by an 18th century adventurer with the foam of wave crests. Chinese have made the nest material into a jelly mixed with spices or sweets as well as soup. The taste? One producer said, it was “sort of like a piece of paper." The nest material has little flavor and generally is cooked with something else to be give it flavor.

Bird’s Saliva Nest soup was invented around 1750 by a Siam-based Chinese man named Hao Yieng who discovered the "wind-eating" swiflets and learned that their nests were soluble in water. In 1770, the King of Siam, granted Hao Yieng a monopoly on the Bird’s Saliva Nest trade. He promptly became rich. Later the Siamese took back control of the nests and a "corps of hereditary collectors" was established.
A kilogram of top quality Bird’s Saliva Nests can go for $3,000 to $4,000, half the price of gold, and is the product of about 120 nests. A tureen of soup for four people of "Nest of Sea Swallows with Venomous Snake and Chrysanthemum Petals with Lemon grass Lotus Seeds in Soup"---with several drops of venom squeezed from the glands of a snake that pulled out a bag---can go for $100 or more in Hong Kong and is made from six nests.

Bird’s Saliva Nest

The nests used for the soup are made by three bird species: 1) the edible-nest or white-nest swiftlet; 2) Germain's swiftlet; and 3) the black-nest swiftlet. These birds live primarily in large limestone caves on islands or near the sea in Southeast Asia. Sometimes called "sea swallows," the small swifts feed on flying insects and navigate through caves like bats using echolocation.
Both males and females participate in nest building. The sticky gelatinous noodle-like fibers used to make the nests are secreted by well-developed salivary glands in their mouth The glands enlarge during the breeding season. When the fibers harden they produce a glue that hold the nest together and keeps it attached to the cave. The incubation period for the eggs is 19 to 23 days. Young remain in the nest for an additional six to eight weeks.
The best nest come from Bird’s Saliva Nest that live deep inside caves. These birds echoloccate with a series of high pitched clicks and rattles that increase in frequency from five a second in open spaces to twenty a second near walls. Distance is determined by amount of time it takes the sounds to bounce off the wall and return to the ear. Direction is determined by the minute difference between the time sound reaches each ear. The system is effective but crude compared to echolocation system of bats.